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FRIENDLY LETTERS 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, 



ON SOME OF THEIR 



DISTINGUISHING PRINCIPLES. 



BY RALPH WARDLAW, D.D. 



s of 



GLASGOW, 

ARCHIBALD FULLARTON & CO.; 

A. Si C. BLACK, EDINBURGH; J. ROBERTSON & CO., DUBLIN; 

AND WESTLEY & DAVIS, LONDON. 

MDCCCXXXVI. 



% 



s 






GLASGOW: 
Fl'I.LARTON A>D CO. PBINTEB8, VIU.APJ RL». 






CONTENTS. 



Page 
LETTER 1. 

Introductory and Miscellaneous, ..... 1 

LETTER II. 

On the Standard of Religious Truth and Duty, . . 38 

LETTER III. 
On the Standard of Religious Truth and Duty — Continued, 81 

LETTER IV. 
On Universal Inward Light, 124 

LETTER V. 
On the Gospel Doctrine of Justification, . • • 175 

LETTER VI. 
On Barclay's Views of Justification, .... 209 

LETTER VII. 
On the Scriptural Authority pleaded for the " Inward 

Light," 234 

LETTER VIII. 

On " the Perceptible Influence and Guidance of the Spirit 
of Truth," 312 



LETTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY, AND MISCELLANEOUS. 



Friends, 

In so addressing you, I wish to be understood 
as using, not merely the distinctive designation by 
which you have chosen to denominate yourselves as 
a body of professing Christians, but a designation 
expressive of personal regard. I have not been an 
inattentive or uninterested observer of the agitation 
that has, for some time past, pervaded your society ; 
and I have felt a strong inclination, blending with a 
hardly less strong repugnance, to " show mine opin- 
ion." — The cause of my repugnance may be easily 
imagined. I may seem to many an officious inter- 
meddler. I may fasten upon myself the unenviable 
character of a gratuitous and forward disputant, fond 
of the gauntlet, most unconscionably enamoured of 
controversy, when I thus, as it will be thought, go so 
far out of my way to find it, — when I cannot leave 

A 



a Christian community, between which and myself 
there subsists no bond of connexion, to carry on, 
without interference, its own discussions, and settle 
its own disputes. — The inclination, however, has 
proved still stronger than the repugnance; and I 
trust, that, when it is with friends I have to do, and 
it is in the spirit of friendship that I enter their arena, 
I shall not verify the proverb of the wise man, and, 
in " meddling with strife that belongeth not to me," 
find myself in the predicament of " one that taketh 
a dog by the ears." 

The inclination thus to address you has arisen from 
two sources. — The first is, the esteem in which, on 
various grounds, I have long been accustomed to hold 
the Society of Friends; an esteem generated and 
maintained by both public and private, official and 
personal acquaintance. The part which they have 
all along acted in a variety of the leading objects of 
humanity and Christian benevolence, has entitled 
them to it. They have been the staunch promoters 
of the suppression of the slave-trade and the abolition 
of slavery ; of the circulation of the Bible ; of uni- 
versal education ; of the mitigation of our sangui- 
nary penal code ; and of charitable relief in all its 
forms. — Their high average character for simplicity, 
integrity, and general moral worth, has entitled them 
to it ; a character which, with whatever amount of 
exceptions, either as to practice or principle, it may be 



regarded^could never have been so extensively earn- 
ed, and so long maintained, without a corresponding 
reality. While I can smile at some of their pecu- 
liarities, and gravely condemn others, I yet cannot 
but hold them, as a body, in affectionate respect. — 
And this respect, resting on public grounds, has been 
confirmed by personal acquaintance, and the intima- 
cies of friendship. I may possibly have been for- 
tunate in the individuals and families with whom I 
have had the pleasure of intercourse, and the little 
coteries of Quaker society into which circumstances 
have thrown me ; but assuredly, from all with whom 
I have come into contact, my favourable impressions 
have received great accessions of strength. Those 
among whom my lot has been cast, I have found, 
not only the steady and zealous friends of every 
measure of public benevolence, but amiable, social, 
and kind in private intercourse, cheerful without 
levity, and serious without moroseness. I have sel- 
dom felt happier than when in the bosom of their 
domestic and friendly circles. — Now, you must be 
aware, that in proportion to the degree in which our 
esteem and affection are engaged, the deeper becomes 
our regret, that in those who are the objects of them 
there should be aught which we are constrained to 
disapprove ; and especially when this is the case in 
what relates to their spiritual and eternal interests, — 
compared with which, in the Christian's estimate, all 
a 2 



else is lighter than vanity. — It is thus I have felt 
towards you. In the Quaker system of doctrine and 
practice, as expounded in those works which have 
heretofore been considered as the accredited stand- 
ards of their profession, there have appeared to me 
such defects and errors, as well as such confused and 
indefinite generality on essential points, as are incon- 
sistent with a Scriptural faith and a true subjection 
to Christ, detrimental to the spiritual life, and even 
hazardous to the soul's salvation. — You will pardon 
me, then, if, in these circumstances, affection prompts 
to remonstrance. When the young man came to our 
blessed Master, inquiring the terms of admission into 
the kingdom of heaven, it is said that " Jesus, be- 
holding him, loved him." The Saviour's affection, 
in this case, was not, we may be assured, that of com- 
placency in his principles and character ; for he had 
spoken of himself with all the vain self-sufficiency of 
the Pharisee, unconscious of defect, and elated with 
the expectation of such a flattering reception as he 
conceived due to his merits, — a state of mind in which 
he who came " to seek and to save that which was 
lost" must have felt any thing but satisfaction : — it 
was the tenderness of compassion, a feeling engendered 
in that gracious bosom by the sight of a youth, it is 
not unlikely of interesting and prepossessing appear- 
ance, labouring under such miserable self-delusion, — 
puffed up with self-righteous conceit, and, judging by 



the test to which he was immediately brought by him 
who " knew what was in man," " loving this present 
world," and, with an ungenerous selfishness, " laying 
up for himself treasures upon earth." Jesus " be- 
held" this youth with the " pity" which " melts the 
mind to love ;" and, the tenderer that affectionate 
compassion, the severer would be the pang with which, 
aware of the result, he applied the test, and sent him 
away " sorrowful." — In this, as in every thing else, 
our Redeemer has " left us an example that we should 
follow his steps." I quote the case at present, with 
no further application, than as it exemplifies the prin- 
ciple by which we should ever seek to be actuated. 
Whatever be the nature and grounds of our affec- 
tion, there cannot be a greater mistake than that we 
should spare those we love ; that we should prefer 
their pleasure to their profit ; that we should rather 
leave them in delusion than disturb their repose ; 
rather let them hold their errors than subject them to 
the pain of their discovery. This would be hatred, 
not love ; cruelty, not kindness. There is no greater 
favour we can do to a friend, than displacing error in 
his mind, and introducing truth. And according to 
the measure of our friendship, and the importance of 
the error and the truth, will be our solicitude to ac- 
complish this end. 

The second source of the interest I have felt in 
the recent agitations of your Society, is to be found in 
a3 



the part formerly taken by me in a controversy which 
involves the essential elements of Christianity. I 
mean, of course, that which relates to the Socinian 
heresy. The connexion here you will find no diffi- 
culty in discerning. The remarkable and melancholy 
fact, of so large a secession from your community in 
the United States to errors of a quite analogous de- 
scription, if they may not even be pronounced identi- 
cal, very naturally, as you will allow, drew my atten- 
tion, and stimulated inquiry as to the tendency of 
some of your principles. Even although, in the 
Quaker system, there were some things which ap- 
peared the very antipodes of Socinianism, — the lat- 
ter discarding every thing of the nature of direct 
divine influence on the human mind, and avowedly 
inimical to all spiritual excitement, presenting a 
scheme of self-sufficient and frigid rationalism ; — yet 
there were other points respecting which, it seemed 
to me, it would be far from easy to acquit them of 
the imputation of a tendency to such a result, al- 
though that tendency may generally, in regard at 
least to outward profession, have been counteracted 
by other causes. In saying so, I have a special ref- 
erence in my mind to the views entertained by Qua- 
kers respecting the Holy Scriptures ; — the secondary 
place which they assign to them ; their subordina- 
tion, in point of authority, to the inward light ; and 
the difficulty, — in spite of all that can be said of its 



being a gift of the Spirit and not of nature., and a 
benefit resulting from the merits of Christ's media- 
tion, — of distinguishing, or at least maintaining the 
distinction, in minds that are not sufficiently imbued 
with a previous mysticism, between the light of the 
Quaker and the reason of the Socinian. Even the 
most intelligent Friends, while they lay down the dis- 
tinction as an article of their system, find it no easy 
matter to keep the two clear of each other in their 
illustrations and reasonings. And if even in the 
writings of such men this difficulty is apparent, how 
much greater must it be to ordinary minds, unaccus- 
tomed to discriminative thought ! — how much more 
prevalent in such minds the propensity to confound 
the two together, — universal light with universal rea- 
son ! Of the Quaker sentiments respecting the 
Scriptures I shall speak at large by and by : — at 
present I merely hint at one of their tendencies, as 
perhaps exemplified in a special case ; the idolizing 
of the light having a similar effect on the mind of the 
thorough-going Friend, in reducing the paramount 
authority of Scripture as the direct and only stand- 
ard of religious truth, with the idolizing of reason on 
the mind of the thorough-going Socinian.* 

* What Socinian could desire a loftier eulogy of Reason, than 
is to be found in the words of one of your earliest writers, one 
who may be reckoned among the founders of your Society — 
William Penn ? " Right reason I mean — the Reason of the first 



8 

Be not offended with me, when I say (for I say it 
in kindness and under correction) that this tendency 
is indebted, amongst Friends, for an augmentation of 
its strength, to a prevailing deficiency in their sys- 
tem of religious instruction, — that all-important 
branch of early education which consists in the com- 
munication of general religious knowledge to the 
mind. I am anxious to avoid all inculpatory reflexion 
that may not have foundation in fact. But is it not 
so, that too little attention has been bestowed amongst 
you on this department of tuition, — the informing of 
the youthful mind as to the principles and general 
contents of the inspired oracles, and as to the evi- 
dences of their divine authority ? Is there generally, 
among Friends, such a system of domestic scriptu- 
ral instruction, or of such instruction in Sabbath 
schools in cases where it is not enjoyed at home, as 
is calculated to impart any thing like enlarged and 
connected views of divine truth ? Is the mere prac- 
tice of daily reading a portion of Scripture, with a 
few moments of silence, however solemn, before and 
after, as a domestic exercise, at all sufficient for such 
a purpose ? Or are silent public meetings, — or meet- 
nine verses of the first chapter of John. For so Tertullian 
. gives us the word Logos ; and the Divine Reason is 
one in all ; that lamp of God which lights our candle, and en- 
lightens our darkness, and is the measure and test of our know- 
ledge." — Quoted by Richard Ball, in his " Holy Scripture the 
Test of Truth," Note, page 93. 



ings where, in that which is said, there is little or no 
appeal to the sacred records, the direct movements of 
the Spirit taking precedence of them, by any means 
fitted to supply the deficiency ? It is easy, on such 
a subject, to speak of the benefits of getting still, — 
and to say many plausible things as to the necessity 
in religion, both as a part of its essential exercises 
and of the means of its growth, of meditation, and 
quiet musing, and the introversion of the mind's eye 
upon itself. But you should not forget, that to true 
and profitable meditation materials of thought are 
necessary. The mind that has little or no informa- 
tion on the subjects of religious musing will gener- 
ally muse to little purpose ; nay, as it can hardly be 
an entire vacancy, I fear they are but sciolists in the 
knowledge of human nature, who, in such circum- 
stances, will commit it to its own thoughts without 
the apprehension of pernicious rather than of salutary 
results. Deem me not uncharitable, — tell me not 
that I judge of others by myself, if I venture to 
surmise, that, were there such a tribunal as a Qua- 
ker confessional, there would come to light before it 
many a thought of vanity, if not of worse than va- 
nity, that has seemed a part of silent devotion. Nay, 
is there no such sentiment among you as a jealousy 
of the human tuition in question, as if it were an in- 
terference with the province of the Holy Spirit, de- 
rogatory to the supremacy and sufficiency of the 



10 

inward light, and a taking of the mind, as it were, 
out of the hands of God ? — And if I am right in 
suspecting the prevalence amongst you, from such 
causes, of a defect of information on religious sub- 
jects, — may not the existence of this defect contri- 
bute, in no small degree, to account for the fact of so 
many, when controversial discussions do arise, being 
shaken, and falling away ? Ignorance, or very par- 
tial information, can never be a safe-guard against 
error, or a preparative for withstanding either its 
sapping and undermining insinuations, or its more 
direct argumentative assaults. It is quite the con- 
trary. In such circumstances, knowledge is power ; 
ignorance weakness. The uninformed mind is taken 
by surprise. With flimsy and confused conceptions 
of truth itself, and little acquaintance with either the 
evidence in its support or the objections against it, 
it is quite unprepared to meet the arguments of her- 
esy, and, when they are presented, in their imposing 
dogmatism, or their subtle plausibility, is startled into 
scepticism ere it is well aware. To commit the 
young to the world in this state of ignorance, is like 
sending out an uninstructed and inexperienced mari- 
ner on a voyage, without giving him any information 
of the rocks, and sands, and currents, and winds, to 
be expected by him in his course, — without furnish- 
ing him with a chart of the seas he has to traverse, 
or showing him how to use it ; so that he is utterly 



II 

unqualified for avoiding or for encountering the dan- 
gers that lie in his track, and may find himself in the 
very midst of perils from which escape is impossible, 
while he is fancying nothing before him but a clear 
sea, propitious breezes, and a safe haven. 

In saying these things, I am anxious to guard 
against two misconceptions. The first is, that I say 
them in ignorance of the counsels, on the subject of 
" parents and education," contained in the Society's 
" Rules of Discipline with Advices," in which a care- 
ful instruction in the contents of Holy Scripture is 
recommended and urged on parents and guardians, 
in extracts from the minutes and letters of many suc- 
cessive yearly meetings. This would be a mistake. 
I have the third edition of the " Rules of Discipline, 
&c.," lying before me. The counsels therein given 
on this important subject are excellent. It would 
evince an unreasonable jealousy, and hypercritical 
captiousness, to find any very material fault with 
them. But this is not the present question. The 
existence of these advices is one thing ; their reduc- 
tion to practice is another. The question is, whe- 
ther a practical conformity to these advices has been 
generally prevalent in the Society ; — or whether the 
Quaker youth, taken in the aggregate, do, in point of 
fact, evince a fair average of Scriptural information. 
— And here I would guard my reader against a sec- 
ond misconception, — as if I intended to advance a 



12 

charge of the contrary, without exceptions. Far 
from it. I believe that there are exceptions, and I 
rejoice to believe farther, that the number of these 
exceptions is decidedly on the increase : — and I can- 
not but regard the multiplication of instances of ex- 
emplary attention, on the part of parents, to this 
essential branch of their duty, as one of the gratify- 
ing symptoms of a begun and advancing ameliora- 
tion in the body. — But I more than fear I am right, 
in conceiving the average amount of religious, that 
is, of Scriptural knowledge, as having been, generally 
speaking, in the Society of Friends, unhappily and 
characteristically low. And the secondary place 
which, in their standard works, and by the venerated * 
fathers of the system, is assigned to the Divine vo- 
lume, as the rule of faith and conduct, is quite suffi- 
cient, independently of every thing else, to account 
for the fact, as one which it was no more than reason- 
able to anticipate. And even in the excellent ad- 
vices in your Book of Discipline, there occur such 
occasional allusions to your primary principle of the 
inward light, and the immediate and independent 
guidance of the Spirit, as to enfeeble the force of 
that influence upon the conscience which they would 
have possessed, had the Holy Scriptures been dis- 
tinctly acknowledged as the supreme and only autho- 
ritative test of religious truth, and source of religious 
instruction. I refer to such sentences as these, which 



IS 

occur in immediate connexion with the inculcation of 
Scripture instruction : — " They " (parents) " will 
" frequently feel the vast importance of doing their 
" utmost to cultivate in their tender offspring a hum- 
" ble obedience to the teachings of the Lord's Spirit; 
:; and, as they advance in years, to establish in them a 
" firm belief of the all-sufficiency of this holy Guide:"* 
- — " On this principle," — (the correct and important 
principle, that " we cannot of ourselves produce reli- 
gion in the mind") — " we must make it our chief 
w object to direct the early and constant attention of 
" our offspring to the Spirit of Christ ivithin them, from 
i; which alone can spring the fruits of righteousness :"f 
— (i and in order hereunto," (that is, to their " in- 
structing them in the nature and necessity of being 
born from above, without which, our Lord declared, 
no man shall see the kingdom of God") " that they 
labour to bring them acquainted with the holy seed, 
which is sown by the Divine hand in every heart for 
that gracious end" — This last sentence occurs imme- 
diately after the specification of the duty of " en- 
couraging children, as well by example as by precept, 
'to the frequent reading of the Holy Scriptures :" — 
but it is evident, that instruction in those truths which 
the Holy Scriptures reveal is not regarded, nor re- 
commended, as the principal means of regeneration, 

* Pages 203; '204. f Page 200, 



14 

— but rather an early acquaintance with the inward 
light, here intended (as the established nomenclature 
of Quakerism might be adduced to show) by " the 
holy seed which is sown by the Divine hand in every 
heart for that gracious end." — And is it not a point 
of fact, that, in the process of early religious educa- 
tion, there has, amongst Friends, been more depend- 
ence on this supposed " holy seed" than on the writ- 
ten word, and a consequent disposition to leave the 
desired effect chiefly to its operation ? Has there 
not been, amongst the really well-disposed and seri- 
ous members of your communion, more of a propen- 
sity to encourage, in the terms of the same publica- 
tion, " a humble waiting for, and feeling after, those 
" secret and tender visitations of Divine love, which 
" are afforded for the help and direction of all," — 
than, by a steady and persevering process of Bibli- 
cal instruction, to replenish the minds of the rising 
generation with a well-digested knowledge of divine 
truth ? — I have alluded, with satisfaction, to the mul- 
tiplying instances amongst you of attention to Scrip- 
tural instruction in the fulfilment of the parental trust. 
It has been with a similar satisfaction, and a similar 
anticipation of benefit, that I have heard of meetings 
held with the rising youth of your Society by some of 
your senior members, for the express purpose of read- 
ing the Sacred volume, and explaining, in familiar 
remark and conversation, its divine contents. But, 



15 

in proportion as this has imparted pleasure, has the 
information, on the other hand, distressed me, that 
the practice has occasioned umbrage, awakened jea- 
lousy, and drawn forth, from some of the more 
staunch adherents of your testimonies, serious admo- 
nition ; and that attempts have been made to suppress 
these Bible classes, as if they were hazardous to your 
principles ! Has not this been the case ? And do 
you really think, that the spirit, from which proceeded 
the suggestion of such counsels and such attempts, 
could be the Spirit of God, — the Spirit by which the 
Scriptures were dictated ? — that the same Spirit that 
gave the lessons, gave also the advice to withhold 
them ? — Are not such facts rather to be regarded as 
additional evidence of the timidity and shyness (to 
use the gentlest terms) which have existed among 
you in regard to direct Biblical instruction, — spring- 
ing from the apprehension, that too much regard to 
the secondary rule might have the effect of drawing 
off the attention of the rising youth from that which 
you regard as primary ? The mistake and presump- 
tion involved in such a sentiment, and in such a fear, 
will be afterwards considered. 

Allow me farther to ask you, whether, in Quaker 
education, the object, to a very great extent, has not 
been rather to fashion Friends than to make Chris- 
tians ? — to impart acquaintance with distinguishing 
peculiarities, rather than with great essential princi- 
b 2 



pies ? — to train to external conformity, rather than to 
impart mental illumination ? Has it not consisted in 
rearing to habits of morality, — of simplicity in appear- 
ance and manners, of integrity and truth in daily 
intercourse, of humanity and kindness, of domestic 
affection, of order, punctuality, industry, economy, 
sobriety, and moderation, with all those other virtues 
by which personal and social respectability, comfort, 
and usefulness in the present world are promoted ; — 
while too little attention has been shown to the in- 
culcation of those great evangelical truths, in which 
are contained the only motives to moral duty which 
the God of the Gospel sanctions, — and the faith of 
which, in their apostolic purity, is the grand principle 
of the whole Christian character ? Has your moral 
training been sufficiently founded in evangelical in- 
struction, — in the knowledge and belief of divine 
truths ? I fear not. Am I wrong ? I shall rejoice 
to be assured that I am. But if, to any considerable 
extent, my apprehension is well-founded, the error is 
a grievous one, and perilous to souls. It separates 
morality from religion ; duty from faith. Unless a 
character be formed on Gospel principles, — its moral 
virtues springing from the faith of divine truths, — -it 
is essentially defective : — it is worse, — its very foun- 
dation is wrong, — its primary elements unsound. 

But is not the formation of characters of this de- 
scription greatly encouraged by your regarding all 



17 

belonging to the families of your Society as born 
Quakers ? — as members of your community by na- 
tural birth? The divine record tells us, that the 
genuine subjects of Christ's spiritual kingdom are 
" born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God." % It is the testimony 
of the Redeemer's own lips — " Except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."f Is 
sufficient, or indeed is any regard shown by Friends 
to this, in reception to the privileges of membership ? 
Is there, amongst them, any formal admission of the 
young to their fellowship, or any formal application, 
on the part of the young, for such admission ? Is 
there any examination of their knowledge of divine 
truth, or of the evidence of its having been to them 
" the power of God unto salvation ?" — any investi- 
gation into the Scriptural marks of a saving change 
having passed upon them, — of their having been born 
again ? If not, is it at all wonderful that there 
should be found many growing up amongst you in 
melancholy ignorance of divine truth, and conse- 
quently without the distinctive influence of evangeli- 
cal principle, and, amidst all the peculiarities of Qua- 
kerism, and all the decencies, and proprieties, and 
conventional virtues of society, with little of what the 
Bible denominates " the power of godliness ?" — little 

» John i. 12. f John iii. 3. 

B3 



18 

of the holiness of the saint, as distinguished from the 
virtue of the moralist ? When there is a strict con- 
formity maintained to those peculiar practices in 
which the " testimonies" of Friends are regarded as 
especially consisting, is not this apt to pass for enough, 
and to supersede inquiry into what is, beyond con- 
troversy and beyond comparison, more important, 
the spiritual state and character of " the hidden man 
of the heart ?" — I do not find, among your " Rule? 
of Discipline," &c, any instructions with regard to 
the application of the young for reception into your 
religious communion, or the examination of their 
knowledge, principles, and character, with this view, 
I find particular directions on the subject of accurate 
registration of births, &c. ; from which, as well as 
from visible facts, I conclude, that all children of 
Quaker parents, when born into the world, are born 
into the Society, and grow up as acknowledged mem- 
bers of it, without any subsequent investigation or 
recognition, on the part of the body at large, or of 
the particular meeting with which the parents hap- 
pen to be connected. Is it to be wondered at, in 
these circumstances, that there should not only exist 
amongst you a great deficiency of religious informa- 
tion, but an extraordinary diversity of religious opin- 
ion ; — so that, to know a man to be a Quaker is to 
have no sure or definite conception whatever of his 
creed, or of any thing else than his conformity, more 



19 

or less strictly maintained, to the marked external 
peculiarities of the body ? 

I hope I may be allowed still farther, without sub- 
jecting myself to the imputation of " all unchari- 
tableness," of the guilt of which imputation my in- 
most soul would acquit me, to suggest it to you, as 
one of the points of danger incident to a Society that 
has stood out with so prominent a distinctiveness as 
yours, that it is proportionally prone to admit the 
influence, consciously or unconsciously, of the esprit 
du corps, I put it to the truly and humbly pious 
among you (for such I rejoice to know there are) 
whether they are not sensible of a risk of this prin- 
ciple having more exercise than it ought to have, not 
only in keeping up attention to the outward badges 
and the special testimonies of Quakerism, but even 
in maintaining, to a certain degree, the high standard 
of Quaker morality itself? The body has obtained a 
character; and where such a character has been ob- 
tained, I freely and gladly grant the credit of having 
deserved it : for however frequently individuals may 
impose on individuals, a whole bod} r of men cannot 
be supposed to delude the community, and to main- 
tain the delusion so successfully and so long. But 
while I admit a reality corresponding to the reputa- 
tion, I cannot, with the sense I have of the deceit- 
fulness of my own heart, and with my eyes open to 
the observation of others, be blind to the danger 



20 

thence arising of the operation of motives of mingled 
and dubious rectitude in the maintenance of it. 
There is, I admit, a regard to character, such as, 
both in individuals and in societies, is not only justifi- 
able, but incumbent. Usefulness and influence are 
dependent upon it. The possession of it is not merely 
agreeable to ourselves ; it is profitable as a means of 
doing good. But in our sinful world, and our state 
of imperfection, there is no good that does not bor- 
der upon evil. The bordering evil, in the present 
case, is pride of character ; a self-complacency, which 
finds cover and apology under principles of unques- 
tionable propriety. May not the inquiry be de- 
serving of a place, in the process of self-examination, 
to what extent the morality of Quakerism may be 
indebted to the reflexion, we must keep up the char- 
acter of the body ? Which of the two considerations 
most frequently and most readily presents itself to 
the mind, respecting any action of doubtful correct- 
ness — This would be inconsistent with my character 
as a Friend> — or, this would be inconsistent with 
my character as a Christian ? — And when deviations 
from the line of duty have occurred, of a public and 
discreditable nature, whether is the shock that is felt 
more imputable to the injury sustained from it by 
the reputation of the Society, — the blot cast upon 
the fair fame of Friends, — or to the dishonour ac- 
cruing to the name of Christ, and the wrong done to 



21 ' 

the interests of true religion in general ? — I throw- 
out these things, not as the insinuations of a spiteful 
malice, or even of an uncharitable suspiciousness, 
but as friendly hints for your ingenuous considera- 
tion. And, since I am throwing out such sugges- 
tions, may I be allowed to add another, — namely, 
that even in the midst of all the external indications 
of lowliness, there is imminent danger of the very 
character to which I have alluded, and for which, 
considered in itself, the Friends are justly esteemed 
and commended, engendering a spirit that is, more 
than any other, at variance w r ith the very genius of 
the Gospel, in its primary and elementary principles, 
the spirit I mean of self-righteous confidence towards 
God. I know well, that there are those amongst 
Friends, who will disown this temper of mind, and 
confess themselves, with the truest humility, debtors 
to mercy alone, through the merits, the sacrifice, and 
the intercession of the Redeemer. But such, I am 
inclined to think, will go along w T ith me in lamenting 
the prevalence of it, to no inconsiderable extent, in 
the body to which they belong. It is far, very far, 
from being peculiar to Friends. It has its seat in 
human nature, and the propensity to it is common to 
them with all others. It is well to bear in remem- 
brance, that, if this state of mind be cherished, our 
Christian profession, according to the unequivocal 
and frequent testimony of the Scriptures, is vain, 



22 

The heart is not right with God; nor is any outward 
obedience, springing from such a state of heart, ac- 
ceptable in God's sight. There is not a little truth 
in the saying, quoted by Dr Cox as that of an an- 
cient father, that " there is no heresy in which, taken 
" as a whole, there is not more of truth than error. 
" So there might be more of food than poison in a 
" fatal dish, in which, but for the food, the poison 
" would never be tasted : still, the poison is more 
" than sufficient to kill ; and is the food then an ad- 
" vantage ?"* If there be one thing which, more than 

* " Cox's Quakerism not Christianity, &c," page 149. For 
my general opinion of the voluminous Work to which I have 
thus referred, I may direct the reader to a Review of the Beacon 
in the Scottish Congregational Magazine for March, 1835. I thus 
avow myself the writer of that article. It has been since re- 
printed in a Pamphlet, consisting of " Extracts from Periodical 
Works on the Controversy amongst the Society of Friends ;" and 
its contents have come under the censorship of an anonymous 
writer, in a publication entitled " Truth vindicated, being an 
Appeal to the Light of Christ within, and to the Testimony of 
Holy Scripture, by way of answer to said Pamphlet." — It is no 
more than justice to the writer of that little Work, to say, that 
he is, in his principles, a consistent Quaker, standing up decidedly 
for the " good old way" of Fox, and Perm, and Barclay, and for 
the paramount authority of the " inward light" as the funda- 
mental article of the system ; and denouncing " the Beacon," 
with all who adopt its sentiments, — and I should violate my con- 
science were I to say without reason, — as abandoning the origi- 
nal and distinctive principles of Quakerism. — I may have occa- 
sion to notice this publication, perhaps, again. At present I 
have only to advert for a moment to a charge which the author is 
pleased to bring against me, — the charge of great inconsistency, 



23 

any other, according to the Scriptures, mars what- 
ever has the appearance and reputation of goodness, 
it is the spirit of self-righteousness. Till that is ef- 
fectually eradicated, all is wrong. It is not the spirit 

and imprudence, and " mistaken kindness," in having, " with my 
" own hand," contributed to foster that " spirit of Pharisaical self- 
" estimation" by an unsolicited testimony to " their high average 
" character, as a body, for truth and integrity, for simplicity 
" and humanity;" — for having "by any adulatory remarks, min- 
" istered to that spirit which makes them more solicitous to 
" maintain their reputation in the world, than humbly to approve 
"themselves to their Divine Master." Page 17. — He considers 
the bestowment of such commendation very much at variance 
with the " wakeful and solicitous apprehension" expressed by 
me for their (the Friends') spiritual danger, — and with my avowal 
of being " alive to their spiritual interests, and regretting the 
errors of their religious system." — I can only now plead Not guilty 
to the charge. I deny that commendation and adulation are synony- 
mous terms. I deny that it is inconsistent with the solicitude pro- 
fessed to commend, however much it may be so to flatter. If the 
commendation be deserved, the bestowment of it is no more than 
what is necessary to impart weight to any accompanying repre- 
hension or censure, by giving a right impression of the spirit by 
which it is dictated. I am borne out in this by the example of 
the Apostle of the Gentiles ; by whom, on various occasions, 
due commendation is mingled with merited reproof. I ask this 
staunch and apparently honest Friend, whether he would have 
thought me acting fairly and generously, were I to have with- 
held all commendation for really existing good, and to have ad- 
ministered nothing but unmingled censure ? I cannot, in most 
instances, commend his own logic ; nor can I, in all instances, 
commend his temper ; but I do commend his honesty, and his 
manly and unblenching avowal of his principles, — even although 
I conceive them to be as ill-supported by him, as they are in 
themselves unscriptural. I should think it wrong in me, to say 



24 

of a sinner ; nor can it, in a sinner, be tolerated by 
the God with whom he has to do. A sinner must be 
a debtor to mercy ; and an humble sense of obliga- 
tion to mercy through a divine Mediator is the pri- 
mary and germinating principle of the renewed 
character, — of the life of evangelical obedience. 

When I had formed the resolution to address you, 
and set rc^self, with that view, to a more studious 
examination of the principles of your Society, I ex- 
perienced an increase rather than a diminution of a 
difficulty which, in common with others, I had pre- 
viously felt, — the difficulty, namely, of ascertaining, 
with any definitiveness, what these principles are. — 
I do not complain of your having no Creed, no Con- 
fession of Faith, no Thirty -nine Articles. There are - 
other bodies of professing Christians who have none, 
besides you. My own is one of them. But in these 
bodies, there exists no such difficulty as the one I 
have mentioned ; or, if it must be admitted to exist, 

the one of these things, and not the other. — And, as to the 
commendation, for which he censures me, contributing to the 
very evil which I profess to deplore, — I have only to put it to 
himself, whether it would have been possible for me to state the 
danger, without stating the fact in which it originated. The 
danger arose, in a great degree, from the very possession of the 
character ; and the only course I could follow, consistently with 
truth and candour, and all right feeling, was to state the truth, 
and to admonish of the danger, — to commend in kindness, and 
to warn in faithfulness. 



25 

it is to nothing like the extent to which it prevails in 
the Society of Friends. The fact is undeniable; and 
is it not of itself sufficient evidence of the compara- 
tively little regard that is shown amongst you to re- 
ligious sentiments, or the articles of a man's belief, 
provided there be a due adherence to what are em- 
phatically called your Testimonies? — I have felt it a 
matter of no easy determination, how far I should 
regard the writings of the principal authors connected 
with the body in the light of accredited standards of 
its religious views : — then, in points on which such 
authors differ from each other, which is the author- 
ity I ought to prefer : — still further, from the unsa- 
tisfactory and sometimes contradictory manner in 
which the question — how far, and in what sense, the 
Scriptures are to be regarded as a test of truth — is 
treated by them, I have been puzzled what to think; this 
being affirmed by one, half affirmed by a second, and 
denied by a third, — and affirmed, and half affirmed, 
and denied, in succession, even by the same individu- 
al : — and last of all, some of your principles have 
been involved by their expounders in such a mist of 
mysticism, or in themselves are so much character- 
ized by that attribute, that it becomes difficult to dis- 
cern them at all, or at least to distinguish, with any 
thing approaching to precision, their forms and di- 
mensions. 

There are, however, some leading points, which, 
c 



26 

whether, in these our days, — (days which not a few 
of you, I believe, regard as days of degeneracy and 
defection from true primitive Quakerism,) they are 
definitely understood among yourselves or not, are 
yet, in common parlance, considered as Quaker ten- 
ets ; and they are, at all events, points on which a 
correct understanding is a matter of supreme, I had 
almost said of infinite^ importance : — and when the 
results connected with them are contemplated, I might 
use the term without incurring, even from Friends 
themselves, the exemplary patterns of correct and 
measured expression, the charge of going beyond 
" the words of truth and soberness." — I refer espe- 
cially to the primary authority of the inward light, 
■ — and to the secondary authority of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. I do not, I presume, go too far, when I speak 
of the former of these, — from which indeed the latter 
is but a corollary, and hardly different from itself, — as 
the foundation principle of Quakerism ; by a general 
renunciation of which, the Society, even were it to 
keep together, would be divested entirely of its ori- 
ginal and primitive character, — and, though retaining 
its designation, would be disowned, with tears of 
shame and sorrow, as backsliding and apostate, by 
every one of its hitherto venerated founders and fa- 
thers. — It is plain, that, until these points are settled, 
there is no common basis for the discussion and de- 
cision of any other. Nay, more than this, — you 



27 

cannot but be sensible, to what an extent the authority 
of some of your other peculiarities of sentiment and 
usage is involved in that of the " light within." In 
my apprehension, Quakerism and the inward light 
may be justly viewed as identically the same, and as 
standing or falling together. In reading the writings 
of Friends, — with the exception of some of their more 
modern leaders, who discover in their statements a 
much greater degree of rational and scriptural sim- 
plicity, — there is an incessant recurrence of this light 
— this universal, saving, inward light ; and in such a 
variety of forms does it present itself, that one is 
greatly at a loss what to make of it. It is reason, — 
it is conscience, — it is grace, — it is the Word of God, 
— it is Christ, — it is the Spirit, — it is God, — it is a 
principle, — a seed, a substance, in which the Godhead, 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dwells: — it is natural, 
— it is supernatural, — it mediates, — it propitiate s, — it 
justifies, — it sanctifies, — it is, in theory and in effect, 
tJie whole of salvation. These various representations 
of the " light within" might be substantiated from 
the writings of your accredited and most esteemed 
leaders. — I cannot but feel, therefore, that, in taking 
up this subject, I am taking up the essence of Qua- 
kerism ; and that no inconsiderable proportion of the 
points of difference, both in sentiment and in prac- 
tice, by which your Society is distinguished from 
other denominations, may find a place for appropri- 
c2 



28 

ate notice in the course of its illustration. Not that 
it is my intention to touch upon all of these. By no 
means. This would require a large volume. I shall 
confine myself to two or three leading articles, of 
which the connexion with the inward light is the most 
immediate. 

It is my wish to write freely and kindly. My respect 
for you is most sincere ; but I should be unworthy of 
any return of that respect on your part, if my respect 
for truth were not still greater. We ought to cherish 
the conviction, and invariably to act upon it, that we 
cannot do each other a more valuable service, than 
that of displacing error from each other's minds, and 
substituting truth. — In the controversies at present 
in agitation amongst you, and which have been chiefly 
kindled by the " Beacon" light, it has grieved me 
not a little to perceive so much solicitude about the 
question, whether this and the other publication con- 
tain what is according to Quakerism. The principal, 
nay, in one view, the sole inquiry ought to be, whe- 
ther they contain what is according to truth ? What 
is the one question, compared with the other? There 
is not a greater danger to the mind, in its investigation 
of truth, than an excessive veneration for names. We 
cannot bear to think of finding those whom we thus 
venerate to have been in the wrong ; and especially, 
if they have evinced their own sincerity, and increased 
our reverential attachment, by sufferings endured 



29 

for their opinions and practices. But, my respect- 
ed friends, ought we to be more solicitous to find them 
in the right, than to find God in the right ? It is not 
the mind of Fox, or Penn, or Barclay, we should, on 
any subject be anxious to ascertain : — it is the mind 
of God. In the preface to Mr W. Newton's " Re- 
monstrance to the Society of Friends," I find the 
following statement : — " In a meeting which was held 
" at the late annual conference of the Society of 
" Friends in London, and intended especially for the 
" instruction of the young, their attention was directed 
" to the example of Penn, Barclay, and other ancient 
" Friends ; and it was said by one of their ministers, 
" that those who did not follow the principles laid 
" down by them, — c who found any thing in the 
" ' Scriptures which they had not found, were out of 
" ' the narrow way, and were going in a tract which 
" * led to the same point with the broad way, and that 
" ' was destruction.' "• — This minister possibly might 
mean no more, than that he himself was so fully con- 
vinced of the sentiments of Penn and Barclay being 
the Gospel, that he regarded all who dissented from 
them as departing from the Gospel, and in consequent 
danger of perdition. But, assuming the correctness 
of the statement, I hope there are few amongst you 
who will not agree with me in thinking that he " spoke 
unadvisedly with his lips." Nothing could be more 
mischievous, than thus to throw the minds of either 
c 3 



30 

old or young into the fetters of implicit faith in hu- 
man infallibility ; — the infallibility too of men, who 
differed from each other, who occasionally differed 
from themselves, who differed still more from some 
of the modern leaders of Quakerism, and, what is of 
most importance, who differed, I apprehend, in no 
trivial degree, from the apostles and prophets of the 
Lamb. 

The author of the " Beacon" makes his appeal 
directly to the Scriptures, as the only standard by 
which he will consent to be tried, — because, in his 
estimation, the only authoritative test of religious 
truth. The question is — Is he right in this ? If 
another question is to be interposed — Does he speak 
according to Barclay ? — let it be distinctly under- 
stood, that the object of interposing this question is, 
not to ascertain whether he speaks truth, but whe- 
ther he speaks genuine Quakerism. The questions, 
whether Isaac Crewdson be in the right, and whether 
Isaac Crewdson be a true Quaker, are essentially 
distinct. To identify them, is to assume the in- 
fallible rectitude of Quakerism, and to settle every 
controversy by appeal to human authority. I do not 
question the right of the religious body to which the 
writer of the Beacon belongs, to press upon him the 
latter of the two inquiries. Every Christian com- 
munity is, without doubt, entitled to say to each 
of its members, respecting any sentiments he may be 



31 

pleased to publish, — " These may be your opinions ; 
they may be according to your views of the Scrip- 
tures : — but they are not the opinions of our body ; 
— and if you hold them, consistency and duty re- 
quire, not that you trouble and distract the body, but 
that you withdraw from it." — But while I grant this, 
it should surely be also admitted, that a man may, by 
various bonds, — both bonds of nature and bonds of 
grace, — be attached to a particular community; that 
he may still see not a little in it which he esteems good, 
and worthy of being preserved and cherished ; and 
that he may be reluctant to break his connexion, and 
anxious, in the first instance, to do his utmost for the 
rectification of what is wrong ; that so, should the 
issue be the necessity of withdrawment on his part, 
or exclusion on the part of the Society, he may, in 
either case, have "a conscience void of offence," as 
having a done what he could." Genuine affection 
may thus be the instigator to disturbance. If the 
peace that prevails have not its basis in truth, the 
sooner it is unsettled the better. There cannot be a 
desire more purely the dictate of genuine love, than 
the desire to lead the objects of that love from error 
to truth ; — and if, the moment we deem them in error, 
we unceremoniously abandon them, the haste of re- 
linquishment, being naturally interpreted as indicat- 
ing the slightness of attachment, may diminish, if not 
even destroy and invert, the influence of our counsel. 



32 

Controversy is not in itself desirable ; but it may be 
necessary ; and even those who are least inclined to 
it may feel this " necessity laid upon them" by a 
paramount sense of duty, — duty to truth, duty to 
God, duty to their erring friends. The God of peace 
is the God of truth; and there may be a peace which, 
as the God of truth, he disowns. In the spiritual 
world, as in the physical, stagnation may be more 
perilous than tempest. The agitating storm of contro- 
versy may at times be requisite, to purify the atmo- 
sphere of Zion from its insidiously gathering, and 
silently death-spreading miasmata* Every thing de- 
pends on the tempers of mind in which controversy 
is conducted : — and it should not be forgotten, that, 
while " the meekness and gentleness of Christ" is 
needful on the one hand, openness to light and con- 
viction is no less indispensable on the other. I have 
already adverted to the danger of an excessive de- 
ference to human authority and to venerated names. 
May the Spirit of truth preserve you from such a 
state of mind as that which Dr Hancock expresses, 
when he writes thus respecting the author of the 
Beacon : — " But I hope he will never be so far self- 
" deceived, as to propose to himself such an unattain- 
" able object, as that of convincing the serious, 
" weighty, and reflecting members of the Society, 
" that they do not know their own doctrines, or that 
" Scripture is against them ; and that for nearly two 



33 

" hundred years, they have been supporting a weak 
rt and brittle testimony, with the loss of life, and of 
" liberty, and of property, in favour of principles 
" which are now found to be delusive and pernicious 
u errors." * — This is to be proof against conviction. 
It is not to open the eyes, but to shut them, — to 
" wink hard" against the admission of light. When 
a writer deprecates the idea of Friends " moving one 
" single step from any of their testimonies, to meet 
" their fellow-christians of other denominations," and 
assigns his reason for it in these terms — " Because 
" we believe that the standard we have adopted is a 
"fixed one, and that as it is, we apprehend, not of 
" our own, but of divine appointment, therefore we 
" cannot change it," f — he evidently assumes the very 

* Defence of the Doctrines of immediate Revelation, &c, 
pages 15, 16. 

f Ibid, page 79. — Having thus adverted to Dr Hancock's De- 
fence, I take the opportunity of saying, that, in my apprehen- 
sion, he has been far from doing justice to the author of the 
Beacon, but is chargeable, in his treatment of him, with a vio- 
lation of the most imperative claims of charity. When he says, 
page 1, " If I am not mistaken, there is a covert attack upon 
" the fundamental principles of the Society, though the object is 
" held out by the author to be a very different one," — he imputes 
to him an insincerity, of which the amiable writer, I am very 
sure, was most unconscious : — and when he adds, as his own vin- 
dication for assailing his Work, — " to suffer such an attack to 
" pass unnoticed from a quarter, in which age, and character, 
" and station, must give it the greater weight, scarcely seems to 
" be the duty of any one who has a firm belief in the truth of 



34 

point in debate, the " divine appointment" of the 
Quaker standard, whilst, at the same time, he leaves 
the questions to be asked, what that standard is, and 
on what description of evidence he rests the infallible 

" our testimonies, and a desire to see them more generally estab- 
" lished" — he seems to have forgotten that "age, and character, 
" and station" ought the more to have commanded his respect, 
and to have screened their possessor from surmises so injurious. 
Yet they are repeatedly introduced. " There is evidently con- 
" siderable address, in stating some of his propositions so warily 
" as not positively to announce such a denial" — page 5: — in the 
same page he speaks of "oblique insinuations;^ in page 15, of 
his taking " another occasion" from a particular passage of Scrip- 
ture " for covertly calling in question the doctrine of universal 
" saving light ;" and, in pages 24, 25, of the terms " mysticism," 
" quietism," and " a religion of feelings/' used by the author, 
as " evidently traps laid to catch the feet of the unwary" and 
expresses his belief that " none of the firm, and sound, and 
weighty members of Christ's church amongst the Friends will be 
entangled in the snare, or drawn away by the specious stratagem." 
— Now to me it appears, that, if ever sentiments were pro- 
pounded clearly and honestly, they are so in the Beacon. They 
are any thing but ambiguous. And of this Dr H. seems himself 
at times to be sensible ; for in the very page in which he speaks 
of his " covertly calling in question the doctrine of universal 
" saving light," he speaks also of " the author's avowed opinion 
of the paramount authority of Scripture, paramount, I mean, to 
that of the light of Christ in the soul ;" and whereas, in one of 
the pages referred to, he talks of " snares" and " specious stra- 
tagems," he, in another — page 76 — represents " the tendency of 
" the Beacon as, in his view, very decided" — That the senti- 
ments propounded in the Beacon are in opposition to some of 
the fundamental principles of genuine Quakerism, it would be 
hypocrisy in me to attempt denying. But I do deny that they 
are propounded covertly, insnaringly, or with any portion of 



35 

and immutable certainty of all its articles. Accord* 
ing to Dr H. ? the Friends' Testimony has been main- 
tained for two hundred years. I presume that, in 
saying so, he refers not merely to any one or more 

malus ajiimus. I conceive there is abundant internal evidence 
in the little work itself, of a deeply pious and sincere desire after 
truth, — evidence, both of a sound mind and an honest heart. 

Thus much I feel myself called upon to say in behalf of the 
author of the Beacon. I do not, however, consider myself 
authorized, by either the rules of propriety or the dictates of 
expediency, to enter here into any discussion of the public steps 
which the Society, by their yearly and quarterly committees, 
have thought it their duty to adopt, in regard to the book and 
its author. Although in possession of materials which might 
enable me to do so, I should, in making such a use of them, only 
embroil myself in a disputation about rules and modes of pro- 
cedure, and the respective rights of religious communities and 
their individual members, instead of a controversy about impor- 
tant principles of truth. It is with these I have to do. Regarding 
the other I shall only say, that I can, by no means, approve, either 
of the attempts made to induce the author to suppress the Bea- 
con, or of the subsequent silencing of his ministry. The for- 
mer, while it involved a tampering with conscience, and a fet- 
tering of free discussion, implied also the strange inconsistency 
of allowing him to hold his opinions, provided he would keep 
them to himself for the future, and avow repentance for having 
given them publicity : — whereas the opinions, being evidently on 
momentous and fundamental points, were either (laying aside 
the question of their truth or falsehood) consistent with sound 
Quakerism, or they were not ; — if they were, why should they 
be suppressed ? — and if they were not, suppression should not 
have been enough ; — the author should have been required to 
disown them, or to relinquish his connexion! with the Society, as 
holding sentiments subversive of its leading principles. To have 
been satisfied with suppression, would have been to be satisfied 



36 

of their peculiar views and practices, but also to the 
great principles of their system. Does he, then, 
conceive, that the two centuries which have elapsed 
since their adoption and promulgation by George 
Fox are a sufficient guarantee for their truth ? If 
he does, we may well ask him, why they were then 
embraced. If at the time they were embraced, they 
were, in any of their articles, new, then they were 
different from what had been held during a much 
longer term of prescription. Two centuries form 
but a ninth part of what is past of the Christian era. 
The principles, therefore, which were previously pro- 
fessed, had a guarantee eight times surer than that 
now pleaded for them ; and Isaac Crewdson is eight 



with dishonesty ; — it would have been a constraining of him to 
" hold the truth in unrighteousness," and, on the part of the 
Society, a toleration of error, and a sacrificing, or at least a com- 
promising, of important truth, for the sake of a merely apparent 
and nominal unity. — As to the silencing of his ministry, while it 
was liable to all the same objections, it seemed also to involve 
the inconsistency of subjecting the ministry to the authority of 
man, — of bringing the sentiments taught to some test different 
from that of direct manifestation, — and thus of interfering with 
the Spirit of God, or admitting that his dictates in one minister 
might be inconsistent with his dictates in others ; — and, along 
with this, the partiality of silencing in one the preaching of doc- 
trines which were acknowledged by others, of deserved eminence, 
to be, in almost all their essential elements, in harmony with 
their own. — Consistency would have required the suppression of 
other writings than the Beacon, and the silencing of other min- 
istries than that of Isaac Crewdson. 



37 

times less to blame in venturing to differ from George 
Fox, than George Fox was in presuming to dissent 
from all before him. But, indeed, we should protest 
against all such calculations. The longer sentiments 
have been held, it is true, and the more numerous 
and respectable the names with which the profession 
of them stands associated, self-diffidence should ren- 
der us the more cautious and considerate in impugn- 
ing them. But still, there is no period of prescrip- 
tion by which error can be transmuted into truth, — 
no term, however long, that can bring us under an 
obligation to believe it. — The question now before 
us is, whether there be any authentic and permanent 
standard of religious truth and duty ; and, if there 
be, what it is. To this question, with a special ref- 
erence to the peculiar sentiments of Friends, I shall 
beg your attention in my next letter. 
Meantime believe me, 

Yours very respectfully, 
R. W. 



LETTER II. 

ON THE STANDARD OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH 
AND DUTY. 



Respected Friends, 

The question to which this and probably 
another letter may be devoted, is, as I have already 
hinted, one of primary importance, — one, without 
the settlement of which it is impossible, with the 
smallest satisfaction, to move a single step in our 
inquiries after truth. I feel that I have no room to 
set down my foot, till we have come to some agree- 
ment here. I cannot reason with you, till we have 
some common principles as to the test by which our 
respective positions are to be tried, and truth to be 
ascertained. And indeed this very question is one, 
and a principal one too, of the articles of difference 
between us. — I come, then, at once to the point. I 
affirm the primary and paramount authority 
of the Holy Scriptures, as the only reasonable 
ground on which w 7 e can conduct any of our discus- 
sions, — their supremacy, and their completeness, 
as the standard of truth and duty in all matters of 



39 

religion. — Here we are at issue. You deny my po- 
sition. You affirm that there is another and a supe- 
rior standard or rule, — called by you the " inward 
Light/' or "Light within," — a phrase which, as 
I have before noticed, is used by your writers in 
strangely various though analogous senses, but which 
I may here, it is presumed, understand as meaning 
the Holy Spirit himself in his immediate sug- 
gestions to the mind.— This you regard as pri- 
mary, and the Scriptures as secondary. 

Distinct conceptions are here of essential moment. 
The manner in which some of your leading authori- 
ties have treated this subject, discovers at times an 
extraordinary confusion of ideas, and contradictori- 
ness of statement ; so that when at one time I have 
fancied I had got almost as much admitted as I could 
wish in behalf of the authority of the Scriptures, I 
have not proceeded far, till I have found the admis- 
sion so qualified as in fact to nullify its meaning and 
its worth. — There is, moreover, on this as on other 
points, so much of what is true and excellent mixed 
up with what is false and pernicious ; so much that 
is true in one sense of the terms, but not true in an- 
other ; and so much that is true to a certain point, 
but loses the attribute of truth by the excess to which 
it is driven ; that, to me at least, it has been a task 
of no small perplexity, to winnow the false from the 
true, and to know with certainty what I should re- 
d 2 



40 

ceive as the doctrine of Friends, and what not. There 
is Jesuitism to be found elsewhere than in the Church 
of Rome. Socinians have many a time exposed 
themselves to the charge of employing the terms of 
truth in such a way as to convey the essential ele- 
ments of error. I would not impute this unworthy 
artifice to any of your writers : but I have no alter- 
native between this imputation and that of confused 
conceptions. It is always a suspicious symptom of 
the correctness of any doctrine, when it cannot be 
stated in explicit terms, and the plain import of these 
terms sustained throughout the discussion of it with 
unequivocal consistency. 

To avoid confusion, I shall take up the doctrine 
relative to the authority of the Scriptures, as taught 
by Barclay, — leaving any notice of the difference 
between him and others to a future opportunity. And 
I shall begin with an exemplification, from this writer, 
of what I mean by using the language of truth to 
convey error. — After having laid down his second 
proposition, which affirms the doctrine of immediate 
divine revelation, independent of, and superior to, 
not only natural reason but the Holy Scriptures, and 
possessing, to the mind that receives it, the same cer- 
tainty as the first truths, that the whole is greater 
than its part, and that two contradictories can neither 
be both true, nor both false ; — he opens his illustra- 
tion thus : — " It is very probable that many carnal 



41 

u and natural Christians will oppose this proposition ; 
" who, being wholly unacquainted with the movings 
" and actings of God's Spirit upon their hearts, judge 
" the same nothing necessary; and some are apt to 
" flout at it as ridiculous : — yea, to that height are 
" the generality of Christians apostatized and degen- 
" erated, that, though there be not any thing more 
" plainly asserted, more seriously recommended, or 
" more certainly attested, in all the writings of the 
;< Holy Scriptures, yet nothing is less minded or more 
" rejected, by all sorts of Christians, than immediate 
" and divine revelation ; insomuch that once to lay 
" claim to it is a matter of reproach. Whereas of 
" old, none were judged Christians, but such as had 
" the Spirit of Christ, Rom. viii. 9. But now, many 
" do boldly call themselves Christians, who make no 
" difficulty of confessing they are without it, and 
" laugh at such as say they have it. Of old they 
" were accounted the sons of God icho were led by 
" the Spirit of God, ibid. ver. 14. But now, many 
" aver themselves sons of God, who know nothing of 
" this leader ; and he that affirms himself so led is, 
" by the pretended orthodox of this age, presently 
" proclaimed a heretic. The reason hereof is very 
" manifest, viz. because many in these days, under 
" the name of Christians, do experimentally find that 
" they are not actuated nor led by God's Spirit; yea, 
" many great doctors, divines, teachers, and bishops, 
d 3 



42 

" of Christianity (commonly so called) have wholly 
" shut their ears from hearing, and their eyes from 
" seeing, this inward Guide, and so are become 
" strangers unto it ; whence they are, by their own 
66 experience, brought to this strait, either to confess 
" that they are as yet ignorant of God, and have 
" only the shadow of knowledge, and not the true 
" knowledge of him, or that this knowledge is ac- 
" quired without immediate Revelation."* 

I should have little if any hesitation in subscribing 
to the entire contents of this paragraph. I believe 
in " the movings and actings of God's Spirit upon 
the heart." In a certain sense, I believe in " imme- 
diate and divine revelation :" — that is, I believe, that, 
in a way which we do not understand, and are warned 
against expecting to understand (John iii. 8.), the 
Holy Spirit operates upon the human mind, in im- 
parting to it the spiritual discernment of the truth, 
excellence, suitableness, and glory, of the testimony 
of the Gospel contained in the Scriptures ; — so oper- 
ates, as that, by the experience of the influence of 
this testimony, the enlightened subject of it comes to 
have " the witness in himself" of its divine original. 
And this spiritual discernment may, in a modified 
sense, be called the revealing of Christ to the mind. 
But when Barclay applies the terms used by him to 

* Barclay's Apology, &c, pages 19, 20. Edit. London, 1780. 



43 

all who do not concur with him in his doctrine of the 
equal, or rather the superior, authority of immediate 
and independent revelations to those of the written 
word, — and unchristianizes all suck, as coming under 
the solemn sentence of exclusion — " if any man have 
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his;" — he 
either deceives himself, or he deceives others; he 
writes either ignorantly or jesuitically. — In proof of 
this, observe. By immediate revelation he means a 
revelation independent of the Scriptures, — not the 
spiritual discovery merely of the excellence of what the 
Scriptures contain, but a communication by the Spirit 
to the mind, without and above them. Now, he is 
quite correct in " distinguishing betwixt the certain 
" knowledge of God and the uncertain ; betwixt the 
M spiritual knowledge and the literal ; the saving 
" heart-knowledge, and the soaring, airy, head-know- 
" ledge," — and in affirming that " the former can be 
" obtained by no other way than the inward, imme- 
" diate manifestation and revelation of God's Spirit, 
" shining in and upon the heart, enlightening and 
" opening the understanding."* This is language 
which I should have no objection to adopt ; but it 
would be with the explanation, that the word im- 
" mediate should be held as signifying, not that the 
" manifestation" of the Spirit was independent of the 

* Ibid, page 20. 



44. 

toritten word, but only that the Spirit's operation was 
directly upon the sinner's mind; — and the word 
"revelation" not as meaning the discovery of new 
and otherwise unknown doctrines, but the discovery 
of the truth and excellence of those made known in 
that word. This, however, is not the view of the 
case intended by Barclay : — and therefore, when he 
goes on to affirm, in unqualified terms, that this truth 
" hath been acknowledged by some of the most re- 
" fined and famous of all sorts of professors of Chris- 
" tianity, in all ages;" "who being truly upright- 
" hearted and earnest seekers of the Lord," " and 
" finding a distaste and disgust of all other outward 
" means," " have at last concluded with one voice, 
" that there was no true knowledge of God, but that 
" which is revealed inwardly by his own Spirit ;" — 
he writes, I repeat, either ignorantly or jesuitically : 
— for the fathers and others whom he quotes certainly 
did not hold the sentiment as held by him. They 
might use terms resembling, or even the same with 
those which he uses ; but it would not have been in 
the same sense in which he uses them. The imme- 
diate teaching of the Spirit meant by them, and which 
they might call revelation, is simply what I have 
mentioned, — that divine illumination, by which the 
truth and excellence of the doctrine contained in the 
gospel testimony are discerned, and its power expe- 
rienced. As an exemplification of what I mean, I 



45 

may select the case of Luther. His language, quoted 
by Barclay, is, that " no man can rightly know God, 
" or understand the icord of God, unless he imme- 
" diately receive it from the Holy Spirit; neither can 
" any one receive it from the Holy Spirit except he 
" find it by experience in himself; and in this expe- 
" rience the Holy Ghost teacheth as in his own pro- 
u per school ; out of which nothing is taught but 
" mere talk."* It is obvious that this is not "reve- 
" lation," or " immediate manifestation," in Barclay s 
sense of the terms — (if it were, there would be no 
difference between the Quaker doctrine on this sub- 
ject and that of evangelical believers of other deno- 
minations;) — it is only the spiritual discernment of 
that truth which, in the word of God, or the Holy 
Scriptures, is already revealed. 

That there is at present, in the Society of Friends, 
a growing deference to the authority of these Scrip- 
tures, — that the disposition is gaining ground to make 
them the ultimate standard of appeal, in matters of 
religion, — a comparison of your older with your 
more recent writers, as well as the progress of exist- 
ing controversies, will not allow me to doubt ; and 
you must excuse me for saying, that it is with special 
pleasure I admit the conviction into my mind. The 
authority of the inspired writings of the Old and 

- Ibid, page 23. 



46 

New Testament, is a subject respecting which there 
appears amongst you an indefiniteness, inconsist- 
ency, and even contradictoriness of statement, such 
as would be marvellous, were it not that they are the 
unavoidable result of what I may call your double 
standard^ — your superior and inferior, your primary 
and secondary rule. I might here quote from writers 
in the present controversy ; but I should then have 
it objected that these were not your accredited autho- 
rities. I therefore prefer Barclay. I may afterwards 
compare his statements with those of your most 
highly and justly esteemed author of the present day, 
Joseph John Gurney ; but in the mean time, let us 
hear him who has, for so long a period, been appealed 
to as the Oracle of your Society. 

In the statement of Proposition II. entitled " Of 
immediate revelation," after referring to the " testi- 
mony of the Spirit," as, in all ages, the source of 
the true knowledge of God, and affirming the con- 
tinuance still of the same kind of revelation with that 
given to " patriarchs, prophets, and apostles," — he 
says : — " Moreover, these divine inward revelations, 
" which we make absolutely necessary for the build- 
" ing up of true faith, neither do nor ever can con- 
" tradict the outward testimony of the Scriptures, or 
" right and sound reason. Yet from hence it will 
" not follow, that these divine revelations are to be 
" subjected to the test, either of the outward testi- 



47 

" mony of the Scriptures, or of the natural reason of 
" man, as to a more noble or certain rule or touch- 
u stone ; for this divine revelation, and inward illu- 
" urination is that which is evident and clear of itself, 
" forcing, by its own evidence and clearness, the 
" well-disposed understanding to assent, irresistibly 
" moving the same thereunto, even as the common 
" principles of natural truths do move and incline the 
" mind to a natural assent, — as, that the whole is 
" greater than its part ; that two contradictories can 
i( neither be both true nor both false " % — In the state- 
ment of Proposition III. w Concerning the Scrip- 
tures," — after enumerating, under three heads, his- 
tory, prophecy, and doctrine, the contents of the 
sacred volume, he proceeds thus : — " Nevertheless, 
" because they are only a declaration of the Foun- 
" tain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are 
" not to be esteemed the principal ground of all truth 
" and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule 
" of faith and manners. Yet, because they give a 
" true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, 
" they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, 
" subordinate to the Spirit, from which they have all 
" their excellency and certainty : for as by the inward 
" testimony of the Spirit we do alone truly know 
" them, so they testify, that the Spirit is that guide 

* Apol. pages 18, 19. 



48 

" by which the saints are led into all truth ; there- 
" fore, according to the Scripture, the Spirit is the 
" first and principal leader. Seeing, then, that we 
" do therefore receive and believe the Scriptures, 
" because they proceeded from the Spirit, for the 
t€ very same reason is the Spirit more originally and 
" principally the rule, according to the received 
Ci maxim in the schools, Propter quod unumquodque 
'" est tale, Mud ipsum est magis tale : that for which 
" a thing is such, that thing itself is more such."* 

Now let us, with all seriousness and candour, ex- 
amine these statements, w T hich being purposely se- 
lected from the propositions themselves laid down, se- 
riatim, by Barclay, as the points which it is his aim to 
establish, may be fairly regarded as expressed by him 
in the most deliberately chosen and carefully weighed 
terms. — Let the following observations, then, have 
your ingenuous attention : — 

1. The Holy Scriptures are acknowledged as a 
rule, but not as the only, nor even as the primary 
rule, of faith and of duty. There is something else 
that is placed above them. What, then, is it? In 
the answer to this question there appears a most 
extraordinary fallacy ; the more extraordinary, from 
its being so palpable, that one can hardly fancy it to 
escape the detection even of a child. They are said 

* Apol., pages 67, 68. 



49 

to be " subordinate to the Spirit," and " the Spirit to 
" be more originally and principally the rule." — But 
surely the Spirit, personally considered, cannot, in any 
propriety of speech, be called a rule. There is, I admit, 
a figurative sense, in which one man may be said to 
be a rule to another, — his example and authority being 
meant. In this way, a father may be a rule to his 
children ; and a good man a rule to his dependants, 
and to all who know and revere his excellencies. 
But if, when we speak of a father being a rule to his 
children, we speak figuratively, and mean no more 
than that his will is that rule; then what consistency 
would there be in speaking of the father and his will 
as if they were two distinct rules, the one primary 
and the other secondary ? The will of the father, 
in whatever way indicated, is obviously and properly 
the rule, not the father himself. This is a truism, 
scarcely worthy of being put into writing. But if 
you admit this, you cannot withhold your assent to 
the same statement, in the parallel case : — it is the 
will or mind of the Spirit, that is obviously and pro- 
perly the rule, not the Spirit himself; the will or mind 
of the Spirit, in whatever way indicated, whether 
mediately or immediately, whether, that is, through 
the instrumentality of others, or directly to ourselves. 
This is, or ought to be, sufficiently clear. For, what 
is my rule, and what is yours ? My rule is, the re- 
corded intimations of the mind of the Spirit in the 

E 



50 

sacred Scriptures .-—this is my primary, my second- 
ary, my only rule ; the only light of my feet, the 
only lamp of my path ; in following the guidance of 
which, I do not disown the Spirit's immediate aid, — 
but earnestly implore that aid, to preserve me from 
all prejudice and every biassing influence that might 
hinder me from discerning, or disincline me from 
pursuing, the prescribed path. Your rule is double. 
Your primary rule, you say, is the Spirit ; your sec- 
ondary rule, the Scriptures. But when you say that 
your primary rule is the Spirit, what do you mean, 
or what can you mean by the Spirit, but the imme- 
diate intimations of the Spirit to your own minds ? 
The rule, in either case, lies in the intimations of the 
Spirit; and the difference between us must inevitably 
resolve itself into this ; that my primary rule is found 
in the intimations of the Spirit to prophets and apos- 
tles, while yours is found in the intimations of the 
Spirit to yourselves. — On this subject, Barclay appears 
to me chargeable with one or other of two things, — 
a most marvellous confusion of ideas, or the most 
disingenuous sophistry. He says — " When we doubt 
" of the streams of any river or flood, we recur to the 
" fountain itself; and, having found it, there we de- 
4C sist ; we can go no farther, because there it springs 
" out of the bowels of the earth, which are inscru- 
" table. Even so, the writings and sayings of all 
? men we must bring to the Word of God, I mean 



51 

" the Eternal Word, and if they agree hereunto, we 
"stand there."* By "the Word of God," then, 
to which, as to a test, " the writings and sayings of all 
"men" are to be brought, he does not mean what 
Christians in general so denominate — the Holy Scrip- 
tures. On the contrary, the contents of these very 
Scriptures are included among " the writings and say- 
" ings of ail men," which are to be brought to his supe- 
rior test, — " the Eternal Word," or, as in the same pa- 
ragraph he terms it, "the Truth itself;" for he says, 
" we may not call the Scriptures the principal foun- 
" tain of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the first 
" adequate rule of faith and manners ; because the 
" principal fountain of truth must be the Truth itself; 
" i. e. that whose certainty and authority depends not 
" upon another." — Now here, I repeat, is either con- 
fusion, or sophistry. Do you not perceive, that the 
difference between you and us relates not at ail to 
the Fountain of Truth, but to the communications 
from that Fountain? The simple question is, not 
whether God, the " Eternal Word," the " Truth 
itself," be the Fountain of truth to us : — who doubts 
it ? — but whether, on the one hand, there are in the 
Holy Scriptures, such communications from this 
Fountain as were designed to be the rule — the pri- 
mary and only rule — of faith and manners, — or 

* Apol., page 71. 

e2 



52 

whether, on the other hand, there are still communi- 
cations made from this Fountain directly to ourselves, 
which are the rule of primary authority. It is vain 
to talk of the Fountain being superior to the streams, 
and of our bringing every thing to the Fountain. 
How is this to be done ? What is meant by bringing 
any writing or saying of man to " the Eternal Word " 
— to " the Truth itself? " Is not this to make the 
direct communications from the Eternal Word, from 
the Truth itself, to my own mind, the test of that 
writing or saying ? If it means not this, what does 
it mean ? And if it does mean this, then the com- 
munications to the mind of each individual are con- 
stituted the test of the communications to the mind 
of every other individual. The mind and will of 
God can be known in no other way than by some 
revelation of them ; and it is this revelation, not God 
himself, that must be the test of all that professes to 
come from the same Source. Where, then, is this rev- 
elation ? Is it the revelation contained in the Scrip- 
tures, or is it the revelation made immediately to the 
mind now ? " The writings and sayings of all men 
" ive must bring to the Eternal Word." We must 
do it. The upshot of the matter, then, is this. The 
writings and sayings of the prophets and apostles are 
amongst the " writings and sayings of all men." 
There is a higher standard than they, namely, the 
Spirit by which they spoke and wrote. To this 



53 

higher standard Robert Barclay brings the writings 
and sayings of these " holy men of God." But 
Robert Barclay, when he leaves the prophets and 
apostles, and goes above them to the Spirit Himself, 
can know the mind of that Spirit in no other way 
than by direct communication to his own mind. If 
there be any other way, it must be in the regions of 
mysticism, whither I must decline going to seek it. 
— But the u writings and sayings of all men" com- 
prehend also the writings and sayings of Robert 
Barclay himself. I am bound to bring them too, in 
the same way, to the same test. And so is each 
reader bound to do with mine. When we speak, 
therefore, of the Spirit as the primary rule, — seeing 
this must mean, if it means any thing attainable or 
even conceivable, the Spirit speaking to the indivi- 
dual, it follows that each individual becomes to him- 
self, in the communications of the Spirit to his own 
mind, the standard of all that professes to be divine 
communication to others ! — If there is a fallacy here, 
I do not perceive it. Let us see, then, what conse- 
quences follow ; and it will be for you to consider 
whether you are prepared to admit them. 

2. The most obvious sequence is, that you place 
the communications of the Spirit to your own minds 
above the communications of the Spirit to the inspired 
writers of the Holy Scriptures. You will perhaps 
deny this, and allege that you only place them on 
e 3 



54 

an equality, admitting that whatever contradicts the 
Scriptures is, by that very contradiction, proved to 
be an illusion, and to have no authority. To place 
the two even on an equality, I might well regard as 
presumption enough ; and I may show this hereafter. 
But in truth you do more. The Spirit, according to 
you, is above the Scriptures, — as the Author of a 
book is above the book; as the fountain is above the 
stream, or above the reservoir which it supplies. But, 
since the Spirit can be known only by his communi- 
cations, it must be these communications which 
form the primary rule, and to which the Scrip- 
tures are subordinate. When you wait for the 
Spirit, and listen to the voice of the Spirit, you 
wait for his suggestions to your minds, — you listen 
to his voice as it addresses yourselves. It is, in fact, 
therefore, to these suggestions and to that voice that 
you give the designation of the primary rule ; and it 
is to these that the suggestions and voice of the Spirit 
in the Scriptures are secondary. If this is not plac- 
ing the intimations of the Spirit to you above the 
intimations of the same Spirit to the sacred penmen, 
I know of no principles that will yield a legitimate 
conclusion. — It will, therefore, follow further, that it 
is more reasonable to try the Scriptures by your 
immediate revelations, than to try the latter by the 
former. The superior must be the test of the infe- 
rior, — the primary of the secondary and subordinate. 



55 

And Dr Hancock does indeed go all this length, in 
consistency with himself and with the principles of 
primitive Quakerism : — " I cannot admit," he says, 
" that the Scriptures, divine and excellent as they 
" are, and blessed, I trust, as means auxiliary to sal- 
" vation, to thousands and millions, are to be placed 
" above the teaching of Christ's Holy Spirit by im- 
' ' mediate revelation ; because I dare not, as mat- 
" ter of principle, place the effect above the cause; 
" in other words, the letter above the Spirit." And 
again : " I maintain that, in this gospel day, there 
" not only may be, but there is, such a revelation" 
(immediate revelation that is) " and that, as it is from 
"Christ himself, it cannot be made subservient to 
" Scripture, though it can never contradict sound, 
" and comprehensive, and impartial interpretation of 
" Holy Scripture." — The same writer avows the senti- 
ment, that the same kind of inspiration, or immediate 
revelation, which was enjoyed by those holy men who 
of old were commissioned to convey the mind and 
will of God to others, has, under the gospel dispen- 
sation, come to be possessed, as a common privilege, 
by all believers. And Barclay interprets one inspired 
Apostle, as pronouncing the anointing of the Spirit, 
possessed by Christians universally, a surer test of 
truth than even that Apostle's own writings. — If these 
things be so, it necessarily follows, that immediate 
revelation now may as reasonably be held the test of 



56 

Scripture, as Scripture be held the test of immediate 
revelation ; — nay, the Spirit himself being above the 
word which he has dictated, the former is the more 
reasonable of the two. We shall see more of this 
immediately, under next particular. 

3. This pretension to immediate revelation, — reve- 
lation of the same kind and the same authority with 
that contained in the Scriptures, has the manifest 
tendency to reduce the value of these sacred Oracles, 
and to render them of comparatively little use. — I 
am well aware, that you will shrink from this con- 
clusion, and indignantly refuse it. I am aware of 
the high respect expressed for the sacred books by 
many of your writers, as well as in the Rules of Dis- 
cipline and Advices, published by authority of your 
Society, and consisting of extracts from the minutes 
and epistles of its annual meetings. I am aware, 
that by Barclay himself there appears at times an 
admission, in so many words, of the propriety of 
using the Scriptures as a test of all subsequent reve- 
lations. Thus, for example, he writes : — " In this 
" respect above-mentioned, then, we have shown 
" what service and use the Holy Scriptures, as man- 
" aged in and by the Spirit, are of to the Church of 
" God ; wherefore, we do account them a secondary 
" rule. Moreover, because they are commonly ac- 
" knowledged by all to have been written by the 
" dictates of the Holy Spirit, and that the errors 



57 

" which may be supposed by the injury of times to 
" have slipt in, are not such but that there is a suffi- 
" cient clear testimony left to all the essentials of the 
" Christian faith ; we do look upon them as the only 
" fit outward judge of controversies among Chris- 
" tians; and that whatsoever doctrine is contrary unto 
" their testimony may therefore justly be rejected as 
" false. And for our parts, we are very willing, that 
" all our doctrines and practices be tried by them ; 
" which we never refused, nor ever shall, in all con- 
" troversies with our adversaries, as the judge and 
" test. We shall also be very willing to admit it as 
" a positive certain maxim, That whatsoever any do, 
"pretending to the Spirit, which is contrary to the 
" Scriptures, be accounted and reckoned a delusion of 
" the devil" &c. &c* — To this agree the words of 
Mr Gurney : — " Scripture is a divinely authorized 
" test, by which we must try not only all our senti- 
" ments on matters of doctrine, but all our notions 
" and opinions respecting right and wrong. c To the 
" law and to the testimony: if they speak not accord- 
" ing to this word ? it is because there is no light in 
" them.' "f — And the sentiments of Friends are sum- 
med up by Evans, in the following terms, chiefly 
those of Barclay as just cited: — " They receive and 

* Apol., pages 85, 86. 

f Observations on the distinguishing Views and Practices of 
the Society of Friends, Seventh edit, page 93. 



58 

" believe in them as the most authentic and perfect 
" declaration of Christian faith; the only fit outward 
" judge and test of the soundness of doctrine; and 
" they have ever declared their willingness that all 
" their doctrines and principles should be tried by 
" them ; and that whatsoever any, who profess to be 
" guided by the Holy Spirit, either believe or do, 
" which is contrary to, or inconsistent with, their 
" divine testimony, should be accounted a delusion."* 
All this, so far as it goes, is well ; and the use of 
such language, along with general eulogies of the 
Scriptures as " the most excellent writings in the world, 
to which not only no other writings are to be pre- 
ferred, but even, in divers respects, not comparable 
thereto," — may render it difficult to persuade your- 
selves, and difficult to convince some others, that 
there is any thing in the views you hold of imme- 
diate revelation that is disparaging to the inspired 
writings. — But, in spite of all this, we cannot but 
regard it as in the highest degree disparaging, to 
speak of the Scriptures, as Barclay does above, in 
the very paragraph in which he admits them to be a 
test, as a secondary rule. There seems an air of 
condescension in even assigning them this place, as 
if it were going quite as far as was warrantable: con- 
sidering " the service and use they are of to the church 

* Exposition of the faith of the Religious Society of Friends, 
&c, pages 236, 237. 



59 

of God — Wherefore we do account them a secondary 
rule?" There is the same air of condescending 
courtesy, when elsewhere, in answering the objection, 
" whether he does not hereby render the Scriptures 
altogether uncertain, or useless," he says — " Not at 
" all. The proposition itself declares how much I 
" esteem them; and, provided that to the Spirit from 
" which they came be but granted that place the 
" Scriptures themselves give it, / do freely concede to 
" the Scriptures the second place, even whatsoever 
" they say of themselves, &c." — But what, I repeat, 
is the meaning of " granting to the Spirit that place 
which the Scriptures themselves give it?" The 
meaning is, that the Spirit himself is the primary 
rule. But in such a proposition, we have seen, the 
Spirit himself cannot signify the Spirit personally ; 
it can signify nothing else than immediate revelation. 
It is this immediate revelation that is the primary 
rule, and that takes precedence of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, while to them, is "freely conceded" the sec- 
ond or subordinate place! Is this to honour the 
Scriptures ? I cannot but regard all the compli- 
mentary terms you can bestow upon these writings, 
as — I will not say hypocritical, — but unmeaning and 
worthless, so long as you hold the sentiment of their 
being subordinate and secondary to your own imme- 
diate revelations. It is vain to call this honouring 
the Spirit : it is honouring yourselves : it is placing 



60 

the dictates of the Spirit to you above the dictates 
of the Spirit to the Scripture writers. Barclay says 
— and he says it when he is speaking of the Holy 
Scriptures, of the place they hold and the uses they 
serve — " For though God doth principally and chiefly 
" lead us by his Spirit, yet he sometimes conveys to 
" us his comfort and consolation through his children, 
" whom he raises up and inspires to speak or write a 
a word in season, whereby the saints are made in- 
" struments in the hands of the Lord to strengthen 
" and encourage one another, which doth also tend 
" to perfect and make them wise unto salvation ; and 
" such as are led by the Spirit cannot neglect, but 
" do naturally love, and are wonderfully cherished 
" by, that which proceedeth from the same Spirit in 
" another ; because such mutual emanations of the 
" heavenly life tend to quicken the mind, when at 
" any time it is overtaken with heaviness. Peter 
" himself declares this to have been the end of his 
" writing, 2 Pet. i. 12, 13. < Wherefore 1 will not be 
" negligent to put you always in remembrance of 
" these things, though ye know them, and be estab- 
" lished in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, 
" as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up 
" by putting you in remembrance. 

" God is teacher of his people himself; and there 
" is nothing more express than that such as are un- 
" der the new covenant need no man to teach them ; 



61 

"yet it was a fruit of Christ's ascension to send 
" teachers and pastors for perfecting of the saints. 
" So that the same work is ascribed to the Scriptures 
" as to teachers ; the one to make the man of God 
" perfect, the other for the perfecting of the saints. 
" — As, then, teachers are not to go before the teach- 
" ing of God himself under the new covenant, but to 
" follow after it, neither are they to rob us of that 
" great privilege which Christ hath purchased unto 
" us by his blood : so neither is the Scripture to go 
" before the teaching of the Spirit, or to rob us of 
"it."* 

Here comes out the truth, — the marrow of your 
system on the present point. For here we have — 1. 
The communications of the Spirit in the Scripture 
writers placed on the same level, in authority and in 
use, with those communications now, " whereby the 
saints are made instruments in the hand of the Lord 
to strengthen and encourage one another;" such 
communications, equally with those of the Scriptures, 
coming from such of God's children as he still " raises 
up and inspires to speak or write a word in season:" 
— 2. Ordinary teachers placed on the same level with 
prophets and apostles, and the writings of the latter 
made to occupy the same subordination to the sup- 
posed new covenant privilege of immediate revela- 

* Apol. pages 83, 84. 
F 



62 

tion, with the lessons and exhortations of the former ; 
so that the Scriptures have no other and no higher 
use than that of the addresses, written or spoken, of 
ministers now, — the use namely, of helping forward 
the influence of immediate revelation in ourselves, 
this being superior to both : — 3. The Holy Scriptures 
quoted, to disprove the necessity of their own instruc- 
tions : — " God is teacher of his people himself" — 
that is, directly, by the immediate communications of 
his Spirit — " and nothing can be more express than 
that such as are under the new covenant need no man 
to teach them" Is not this to declare new covenant 
believers, and that on the authority of Scripture it- 
self, independent of Scripture teaching? Does it 
not follow from this, that the chief lesson taught by 
the New Testament Scriptures, is the lesson that they 
themselves, though useful, are not necessary ? And 
can any lesson be conceived more directly calculated 
to discourage the study of them ? Can any thing 
tend more to produce neglect of them, than to tell a 
man that he can do without them, — that he has a 
higher teacher than they, by whom he is rendered 
independent of them? I appeal to yourselves, if 
this be not the inevitable tendency of such a prin- 
ciple ? If I believe the Scriptures not only to have 
been " given by inspiration of God," but to contain 
a complete revelation of the divine mind and will, 
and to be the only source of authentic and saving 



63 

instruction in divine things, I then value them ac- 
cordingly ; I feel the necessity of " searching them 
as for hidden treasures ;" I say of them, "The law 
of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands oi 
gold and silver," — " O how love I thy law ! It is 
my meditation all the day." But if I once admit 
the conception, that the Scriptures are not to me the 
only fountain of truth ; that there is another and a 
higher from which I may draw directly and inde- 
pendently of them, — even the fountain from which 
they have themselves been derived ; — that moment, 
the necessity for the study of them ceases to be felt, 
and the force of the inducement to it is proportion- 
ally paralyzed. They become a mere collection of 
streams, from the same source whence other streams, 
equally sacred, flow directly to myself. They be- 
come mere helps to a higher teacher ; and who will 
choose going to the usher or monitor, when he 
can have his lessons immediately from the Head 
Master ? 

But what then, you may perhaps ask, — what will 
you make of the explicit declaration quoted by Bar- 
clay from the Apostle John — " Ye need not that any 
man teach you ? " — I must answer, after the manner 
of some old divines, in the first place, negatively ; 
and the negative answer, indeed, should, in such a 
case, be sufficient. Whatever it does mean, there is 
one thing which it plainly cannot mean ; and that is 
f2 



64 

the very thing which, to be at all to Barclay's pur- 
pose, it would require to mean; — it cannot mean that 
they stood in need of no further instruction : — for if 
this were the meaning, how could it be made to com- 
port with the very fact of John's addressing to them 
the epistle where the words stand ? Why does he 
write to them? Is it not to " teach and admonish" 
them ? It cannot, then, mean this. — Neither can it 
mean, that the knowledge which they already pos- 
sessed — the knowledge of the facts and doctrines 
of the Gospel — had come to each and all of them 
by direct communication from the Spirit of truth, 
without the intervention of any human teacher. That 
neither the words quoted, nor those in the same con- 
text — " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, 
and ye know all things" — have any such meaning 
as this, — John himself puts beyond a doubt by 
expressly affirming the contrary : " That which was 
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we 
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, 
and our hands have handled, of the word of life — 
(for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and 
hear witness, and show unto you that Eternal Life, 
which was with the Father, and was manifested unto 
us) — that which we have seen and heard declare we 
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us ; 
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with 
his Son Jesus Christ." Chap. i. 1 — 3. — They re- 



65 

eeived their knowledge, then, both of the facts and 
truths of the Gospel, from the testimony, or witness- 
bearing, of the Apostles : — that which they knew, 
had been declared unto them by others. — The mean- 
ing, then, seems to be this. It w r as in connexion with 
" the truth as it is in Jesus," that they had received 
the " unction from the Holy One." The truth was 
imparted to them by the commissioned teachers; and 
the anointing of the Spirit came along with it, en- 
lightening their minds to discern its divine excellence, 
and giving them, in its felt influence upon their 
hearts, the experimental evidence of its divine origin 
and authority. " I have not written unto you," says 
John, " because ye know not the truth, but because yt 
know it, and that no lie is of the truth." They so knew 
the truth, spiritually and experimentally, under di- 
vine teaching, that they might well be proof against 
the seducing influence of new and false instructors- 
— the instructors whom he designates by the genera, 
name of Antichrist. — These teachers came to them 
with doctrines of their own. But they needed no 
such instructors. The gospel of the Apostles, Q'om 
gospel," says Paul) " had come to them, not in word 
only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and 
in much assurance :" — having " heard the word of 
truth, the gospel of their salvation," and " having- 
believed in Christ" of whom it testified, " they had 
been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." By 
f 3 



66 

this " unction from the Holy One," they " knew the 
certainty of those things wherein they had been in- 
structed;" they "had the witness in themselves." 
To listen to other teachers, was to doubt the testi- 
mony of God, who had accompanied his own truth 
with the most unequivocal evidence. So that, in- 
stead of listening to "those that seduced them," they 
had good reason to act as John enjoins in his second 
epistle — " If there come any unto you, and bring 
not this doctrine," (the " doctrine of Christ" deliv- 
ered by Apostles,) " receive him not into your house, 
neither bid him God-speed." There were some who 
had " gone out from" the communion of Apostles 
and Christians, and had thus shown that " they were 
not of them :" — but he was " persuaded better things" 
of them to whom he wrote — persuaded, that, having 
the anointing of the Spirit abiding in them, they 
would not hearken to the counsel that causeth to err 
from the way of knowledge, but would " continue in 
the Son and in the Father." — But, make of John's 
language what you will, it is enough for my present 
purpose to have shown, that it can neither mean that 
they had received their knowledge immediately from 
the Spirit, nor that all farther instructions were su- 
perfluous ; inasmuch as both of these things stand 
contradicted by the Apostle himself in the very 
epistle where the words are found. 

Of the tendency of the doctrine of immediate 



67 

revelation, or inward light, to depreciate the Scrip- 
tures, we have an exemplification, which, to my mind, 
is very shocking, in the manner in which Barclay 
speaks of the use made by the Apostle Paul of the 
Old Testament writings, in his communings with the 
Jews. He is answering the objection to his doctrine, 
(the doctrine that the Scriptures are not the primary 
rule and test of truth) drawn from what is said of the 
Bereans, that, when Paul preached to them, " they re- 
ceived the word with all readiness of mind, and search- 
ed the Scriptures daily whether these things were so." 
His third reply to the objection is — " If this commen- 
" dation of the Jewish Bereans might infer that the 
" Scriptures were the only and principal rule to try 
" the Apostle's doctrine by, what should become of 
" the Gentiles ?" — who were not previously, like the 
Jews, believers in the divine authority of the Old 
Testament Scriptures ; so that an appeal to these 
Scriptures could not be supposed to have any weight 
with them. Now, although the Apostle does not 
omit this description of evidence even with Gentiles, 
— for it is to Gentiles he says — " I declare unto you 
the gospel which I preached unto you — that Christ 
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that 
he was buried, and that he rose again the third day 
according to the Scriptures ;" — yet I readily grant, 
he does in general reason differently w T ith Jews 
and with Gentiles : — with the former, " out of the 



68 

Scriptures ;" — with the latter, on principles taught 
by the light of natural reason and conscience. But 
what shall we say of the following comparison ? 
" Now certainly the principal and only rule is not 
" different ; one to the Jews, and another to the 
" Gentiles ; but is universal, reaching both ; though 
" secondary and subordinate rules may be various, 
" and diversely suited, according as the people they 
" are used to are stated and circumstantiated : even 
" so we see that the Apostle to the Athenians used 
w a testimony of one of their own poets, which he 
" judged would have credit with them; and no doubt 
" such testimonies, whose authors they esteemed, had 
" more weight with them than all the sayings of 
" Moses and the prophets, whom they neither knew, 
" nor would have cared for. Now, because the 
" Apostle used the testimony of a poet to the Athe- 
" nians, will it therefore follow he made that the 
" principal or only rule to try his doctrine by? So 
" neither will it follow, that though he made use of 
" the Scripture to the Jews, as being a principle al- 
" ready believed by them, to try his doctrine, that 
< ; from thence the Scriptures may be accounted the 
" principal or only rule." * — Is it come to this ! — 
that Paul's reasoning with the Jews from the Old , 
Testament Scriptures, no more implies his acknovv- 

* Ibid, page 90. 



69 

ledging these writings as the rule or test by which 
he consented his doctrine should be tried, — than his 
quoting with approbation a saying of the Athenian 
Menander implies his acknowledging as such a rule 
or test the testimony of that heathen poet ! Assur- 
edly, when Paul " reasoned with the Jews out of the 
Scriptures" in proof of his two leading positions, — 
" that the Christ was to suffer and to rise from the 
dead, and that Jesus whom he preached to them 
was the Christ," — he proceeded upon the assumption, 
that if his doctrine did not agree with the typical 
and prophetic intimations of these Scriptures, it had 
no title to be received as true, and his unbelieving 
countrymen were justified in rejecting it. Surely 
this w r as admitting the Old Testament Scriptures to 
be a legitimate test of his doctrine. Who questions 
that? you may say : that which w r e insist on is, their 
not being the only or the primary test. I answer, if 
by a test is to be understood merely an evidence of 
truth, then certainly they were not the only test. 
There were other proofs of the divinity of Paul's 
doctrine ; and to them, perhaps, as being more direct 
and immediate, the epithet of " primary" might even 
more appropriately be applied. I allude to the mir- 
acles, by which the divinity of his commission, and 
the truth of his message, were alike attested. But 
if by a test is meant a legitimate or authorized stan- 
dard of comparison, by their conformity or discon- 



70 

formity to which other things are to be tried ; then 
I must insist upon it, that in this sense, the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures were both the primary and the 
only test. What other was there ? The light within, 
says Barclay, the universal light, — the same to both 
Jews and Gentiles. But if the inward light was the 
primary test, how came it that, with the Jews, Paul 
made his appeal, always to the secondary, and never 
to the primary ? And with regard to the Gentiles, 
what is this inward light ? Is it simply reason, or is 
it the direct illumination of the Spirit, — immediate 
revelation ? If it be reason, we may well ask, has 
God indeed constituted the reason of fallen man 
the standard, the primary standard, of his own 
truth ! Has not the reason of fallen man, in its ap- 
plication to the things of God, proved itself, in all 
ages and in all places, to be foolishness ? Is not the 
light that is in him darkness? And are we to regard 
as the divinely sanctioned standard of religious truth, 
a principle, of which the results, in universal experi- 
ence, have been little else than multiform and miser- 
able error ! That the principles of divine revelation 
are in perfect harmony with sound reason, I more 
than grant. We can appeal in their behalf to the 
judgments of men, and say, " Why even of yourselves 
judge ye not that which is right?" But this is a 
very different thing from setting up human reason, 
perverted as it is by depravity, as the standard of the 



71 

truth of God. — If, again, the inward light is divine 
illumination, we have to observe, first, that the as- 
sumption of it involves a begging of the question. 
The existence of such illumination independently of 
the written word, — the existence, that is, of imme- 
diate revelation in others than those by whom that 
word was recorded, — is the very point in dispute. 
No one, surely, will be so pitifully weak as to adduce 
Paul's reference to the saying of the poet, Menander, 
as a proof of it ! — We have to observe, secondly, 
that to make this description of inward light the 
standard of divine communications, is to make it the 
standard of itself. You lay claim to immediate 
revelation, as the privilege of all who live under the 
new covenant economy. What, then, is the differ- 
ence between immediate revelation and inward light? 
If we are to try the former by the latter, what is this 
but trying it by itself, and making the Spirit's illu- 
mination in one the test of the Spirit's illumination 
in another; which amounts to the same thing as hav- 
ing no test at all ? Every man's own light is his 
own standard ; and is the standard of the light in 
others ; and is the standard of the light even in the 
Holy Scriptures, inasmuch as the Spirit himself is 
above the external word, and his direct communica- 
tions are more to be looked to than those which have 
come to us through the medium of others. And is 
this to do honour to the Scriptures ? * 



72 

That I do not go too far in this last position, — that 
Quaker principles do in reality, however much Friends 
may at times disclaim it, place the immediate revela- 
tion of the Spirit above that which is contained in 
the written volume of inspiration, — may be made 
apparent by exemplification in facts, as well as by 
general reasoning. — The lives of some of your most 
noted characters, both in England and in America, 
— the life, for example, of George Fox, and that of 
Job Scott, — bring before us men, not taking the 
written word as " the light of their feet and the lamp 
of their paths," ever searching for and following its 
directions, — but waiting for the immediate visitations 
of the Spirit to themselves, listening to his secret 
voices in their own minds, and even proceeding with 
confidence on his prophetic intimations to them of 
the future ! Have the Scriptures, in such cases, the 
prominence and the deference due to them ? Are 
they not rather thrown into the back ground ? Do 
not the auto-biographers appear before us, rather as 
themselves inspired, and walking in the conscious 
dignity of such inspiration, than as humbly submit- 
ting themselves to the guidance of the inspiration of 
others? — on an equality with Isaiah and Jeremiah, 
and Peter and Paul, as fellow-partakers with them of 
the same Spirit of immediate revelation, rather than 
sitting down at their feet, to receive their instructions 
as the truly inspired and divinely constituted guides 



73 

to truth and duty, — of whom God says, " He that 
heareth you heareth me," and who could say of them- 
selves, " We are of God : he who is of God heareth 
us; he who is not of God heareth not us?" 

Barclay represents the direct manifestation of the 
Holy Spirit in the mind as more to be depended on 
than the Scriptures, at any rate as we possess them; 
and, in order to recommend the more his favourite 
inward light, he takes very unseemly and mischievous 
pains to place in the strongest possible point of view r 
the prejudices, the unfaithfulness, and the consequent 
false renderings, of translators, as well as the accidental 
errors, the various readings, and other corruptions of 
the sacred text. According to him, the direct mani- 
festation of the Spirit is clearer and more satisfac- 
tory than truth coming to us through any such me- 
dium : — " It is through and by the clearness which 
" that Spirit gives us," he says, " that we are only 
" best rid of the difficulties that occur to us with re- 
" gard to the Scriptures." And the instance adduced 
by him, in illustration and proof of this, is indeed 
a most extraordinary one : — " The real and undoubt- 
" ed experience whereof I myself have been a wit- 
" ness of, with great admiration of the love of God 
" to his children in these latter days : for I have 
" known some of my friends, who profess the same 
" faith with me, faithful servants of the Most High 
" God, and full of divine knowledge of his truth, as 

G 



" it was immediately and inwardly revealed to them 
" by the Spirit, from a true and living experience, 
u who not only were ignorant of the Greek and He- 
" brew, but even some of them could not read their 
" own vulgar language, who, being pressed by their 
" adversaries by some citations out of the English 
" translation, and finding them to disagree with the 
" manifestation of truth in their own hearts, have 
' 6 boldly affirmed the Spirit of God never said so, 
" and that it was certainly wrong ; for they did not 
" believe that any of the holy prophets or apostles 
" had written so ; which, when I, on this account, 
" seriously examined, I really found to be errors and 
" corruptions of the translators ; who (as in most 
-' translations) do not so much give us the gen- 
" uine signification of the words, as strain thern to 
" express that which comes nearest to that opinion 
" and notion they have of truth/'* — It would have 
been well, had Barclay given us some little infor- 
mation, what the passages were to which he refers ; 
that so we might have judged between him and our 
translators, whom he so unceremoniously criminates. 
It is not impossible, that we might have thought the 
straining on the other side, and the translators not so 
far wrong. At all events, we should have been al- 
lowed to judge for ourselves. — It is quite conceivable, 

* Apol. page 82. 



75 

that a person, who has formed his views of divine 
truth from extensive and careful examination of the 
Scriptures themselves, might suspect the correctness 
with which a particular passage had been translated, 
on the ground of the sentiment conveyed being at 
variance with what is usually called the " analogy of 
faith," and, on examination, find his suspicions well- 
founded. But this is a case quite different from 
Barclay's. His object is, to exalt the inward light 
or immediate revelation, as a privilege superior in 
excellence to the possession of the written word, in 
any translation, or even in the original text. I say, 
even in the original text ; for of it there have been 
corruptions, some of them more and some of them 
less important, and various readings, contending for 
the preference : — and indeed, it is only by translation 
that the meaning of the text, however immaculate it 
be supposed, can be known, — it being sufficiently 
manifest, that the man w r ho does not follow the trans- 
lation of another, must follow his own. — By thus 
exalting immediate revelation at the expense of the 
written word, the latter is proportionally depreciated, 
and its certainty and authority alike impaired. If 
indeed it be so, that we are surer of truth by heark- 
ening to the voice of the Spirit speaking immediately 
to ourselves, than by having recourse to those re- 
cords of inspiration, where there may be errors both 
in the transcription and translation ; — if it be so, that 
g2 



76 

the danger of mistaking the reality of communica- 
tions from the Spirit to ourselves is smaller than the 
danger of mistaking the meaning of the recorded 
communications to others ; — what becomes of the 
inducement to study the Scriptures ? They cannot 
fail to be little thought of, and little read and investi- 
gated, in proportion as men come to think they have 
something else that is clearer and better, — something 
that qualifies them for detecting and rectifying the 
errors of the written record, instead of requiring 
them to come to that record for the detection and 
rectification of their own ! 

This is certainly a novel principle of Biblical cri- 
ticism ; and, were it not for its rank mysticism, and 
its seriously mischievous tendency, one might be 
disposed to make a little merry with it, I refrain, 
however. Whether there be less danger of error in 
hearkening to the Spirit in ourselves, than in heark- 
ening to the Spirit through the medium of the writ- 
ten record, is a question which few will have much 
hesitation in answering, who are at all duly aware of 
the unnumbered sources of self-delusion in the human 
mind. The length to which the adoption of Bar- 
clay's principle may carry a man, is afFectingly il- 
lustrated in the case mentioned by Mr Newton in 
his " Remonstrance to the Society of Friends." 
Before mentioning it, it is necessary to premise, that 
Barclay applies his principle, not merely to the im- 



77 

mediate manifestation of the Spirit in spiritual men, 
or genuine believers in Christ, but to that universal 
light within, which Friends hold to be enjoyed by 
all men, in virtue of Christ's mediation. — " Last 
year," says Mr Newton, " while travelling in Ire- 
" land, I met with a physician, w T ho had been educated 
" as a Friend, and professed entire coincidence with 
" the doctrines of Barclay, though he believed not in 
" the Lamb slain for sin. When the concluding 
" verses of the 9th of Hebrews were quoted (' with- 
" out shedding of blood is no remission') he refused 
u to receive it as Scripture, because it did not meet 
" the witness of the Spirit in his own mind ; and he 
'•' then instanced other passages which he rejected on 
" the same principle. Thus an unregenerate man, 
" taught by Barclay to believe that God dwelt in 
" him, was determining what he would not receive 
" as Scripture, and using the very principle of Bar- 
" clay in defending the rejection of the blood of the 
" covenant." * — You may allege, that this is the abuse 
of the principle ; but to me it seems to be no more 
than its legitimate application. This man had the 
same right to follow " the witness of the Spirit in 
his own mind," that the others had, whose conduct 
Barclay sanctions and commends, regarding its result 
with admiration and gratitude, as a signal exemplifi- 

* Remonstrance, &c. a page 46, Note. 
g3 



78 

cation of " the love of God to his children in these 
latter days." If the principle did indeed chance in 
the one case to lead right, (for which, however, we 
have no evidence but Barclay's opinion ;) it chanced, 
in the other, to lead wrong. And it is manifestly a 
principle, which, by leaving truth to be determined 
by the impressions of every man's own mind, and 
those impressions subject to the illusive influence of 
a heart " deceitful above all things," is not at least 
less likely to lead wrong than to lead right. Whether 
it has not led even Mr Barclay himself to principles 
at variance with those taught by the Apostles of 
Christ, — to principles that go far to subvert the Gos- 
pel, we may hereafter have occasion to examine. I 
now speak only of the tendency of the principle; and 
this, I conceive to be, both to draw away the thoughts 
from the Scriptures to what is believed to be a higher 
authority, and to leave that authority dependant on 
the fancied spiritual illumination of every man's own 
mind. 

It will not avail you to say, in answer to this, that 
there are differences of sentiment among those who 
profess to defer to the Scriptures themselves as the 
primary and only test. We grant it ; we deplore it. 
But there is this difference between you and us; and 
it is a most important one, in as far as the respect 
due to the Scriptures is concerned, — that no protes- 
tant interpreters regard their expositions of Scripture 



79 

as possessing any pretension to inspired authority ; 
they all hold that authority to lie solely in the in- 
spired writings themselves ; and this principle binds 
them to one point — the ascertaining of the real im- 
port of those writings. This import alone, when 
duly ascertained, they regard as of divine obligation. 
But you, on the contrary, pretend to a source of in- 
formation and direction superior to what you are 
accustomed to call — may I not say disparagingly ? 
■ — the mere external rule : — and, while this necessa- 
rily leads to the practical depreciation of that rule, 
it exposes you to two sources of error instead of one ; 
the first being the liableness, common to you with 
others, to misapprehension of the lessons of Scrip- 
ture, when you do have recourse to it, — and the sec- 
ond, the liableness, peculiar to Friends, to self-decep- 
tion and mistake, as to the reality of the Spirit's 
intimations to yourselves. I am well aware, (it 
would be impiety to question it,) that the blessed 
God, having immediate access to the human mind, 
can impart to any man, whensoever he pleases, the 
absolute assurance that a particular communication 
comes from Him. That he did this, in many in- 
stances, to prophets and apostles, independently of 
the evidence of external signs, I freely grant. Even 
by them, however, such signs were not unfrequently 
sought for their own fuller satisfaction ; and for the 



80 

satisfaction of others they were indispensable : — 
which leads me to observe— 

4. That the modern revelations of Quakerism, even 
on the assumption of their being genuine, and of 
their being certified to the mind of the individual with 
divine assurance (an assumption, however, which 
would be a begging of the question at issue, — the 
question, namely, whether such revelations, indepen- 
dent of what is already recorded in the Scriptures, 
be still made) — yet can be of avail, so far as their 
authority is concerned, and the consequent obligation 
they impose, to him only who receives them. How 
are they to avail for others ? 

But, the present letter having been more than suffi- 
ciently extended, I shall defer the consideration of this 
question, along with remarks on some other topics 
connected with the all-important subject of the au- 
thority and completeness of the Scriptures, to form 
the contents of my next, and subscribe myself again, 
Yours very respectfully, 

R. W. 



LETTER III. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 



Respected Friends, 

In the conclusion of my last letter, I 
had just announced a fourth general observation, in 
regard to the standard of religious truth and duty. 
I repeat the terms in which it was then stated, and 
proceed with the consideration of it : — " That the 
" modern revelations of Quakerism, even on the as- 
i( sumption of their being genuine, and of their be- 
" ing certified to the mind of the individual with 
" divine assurance, — yet can be of avail, so far as 
" their authority is concerned, and the consequent 
" obligation they impose, to him only ivho receives 
"them. How are they to avail for others?" — The 
question is one of essential moment. — How are they 
attested ? Whatever assurance inspired men had of 
old, that " the Divinity stirred within them," and 
that the intimations to their minds were from Him, 
— this assurance was exclusively their own. They 
could not convey it to other minds. It was of too 
peculiar a nature, to be known otherwise than by 



82 

experience. Hence they required credentials of 
their commission, and of the divine authority of 
their message. They performed miracles ; they de- 
livered predictions. If any man, therefore, now 
assures us of his being " moved by the Holy Spirit," 
like the " holy men of God" by whom the divine 
oracles were delivered of old, we are fully entitled to 
demand his credentials ; to say to him, " What sign 
showest thou, that we may see it and believe thee ?" 
In what other way is the revelation given to one man 
to have authority with another? Must we, in all 
cases, take it upon trust ; and, whenever a man — let 
the excellence of his character be what it may — is 
pleased to assure us that " the Spirit moveth him" 
to make any particular communication, must we ac- 
cept it simply on his word, and defer to him as an 
inspired authority ? — or must every individual wait 
for the Spirit's intimations to himself? I certainly 
feel myself, not merely warranted, but imperatively 
bound, before accepting as divine the lessons or the 
commands, the counsels, the consolations, or the ad- 
monitions, of another, to ask satisfactory evidence of 
his speaking from God. The correspondence be- 
tween the witness of the Spirit in him, and the wit- 
ness of the Spirit in me, is not sufficient ; for both 
may be a delusion : — and if they should differ, which 
am I to follow ? 

Allow me, in this connexion, a few remarks on the 



83 

extent of fallacy and contradiction into which the 
admission of a single false principle may lead. I take 
my exemplification from the same eminent individual, 
Barclay himself. He writes clearly and ably, when 
he happens upon right ground ; but, on the subject 
before us, and on some others, he is betrayed by the 
exigencies of a false principle, into the most extraor- 
dinary inconsistencies. — In the first place, for exam- 
ple, he confounds the thing believed and the mode of 
its communication to the mind. — He lays down as a 
maxim what no Christian of any intelligence will 
dispute, that the object of the faith of the saints has, 
in all ages, been the same. But, his creed requiring 
that the object of faith be something inward^ — the 
spiritual mystical Saviour, the Christ within, — he is 
led by this into the strange confusion to which I have 
just adverted. As a specimen of this confusion, of 
which it were not difficult to produce many, observe 
what he says, when speaking of the examples of faith 
enumerated in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to 
the Hebrews : — " And as to the other part or conse- 
" quence of the antecedent, to wit, that the object is 
" one where the faith is one, the apostle also proveth 
" it in the fore-cited chapter, where he makes all the 
" worthies of old examples to us. Now, wherein are 
" they imitable, but because they believed in God ? 
" And what was the object of their faith, but inward 
f 6 and immediate revelation, as we have before proved? 



84 

" Their example can be nowise applicable to us, un- 
" less we believe in God as they did ; that is, by the 
" same object." — Confusion of ideas seems here to 
have led to confusion of terms. Inward and imme- 
diate revelation, was not surely the object of their 
faith, or the thing believed ; it was no more than the 
mode of its communication to the mind. When it is 
said " Their example can be no w r ays applicable to 
" us, unless we believe in God as they did ; that is, 
" by the same object ; " the confusion of terms is sur- 
prising. If the words have any meaning at all, they 
must mean, that we cannot be said to believe the 
same thing, unless it be communicated to us in the 
same way ; that the object of our faith cannot be the 
same, unless the mode of communication be the same; 
that that which was communicated to prophets and 
apostles by direct inspiration, must also be commu- 
nicated to us by direct inspiration, else we cannot be 
said to have the same faith with them, — to believe 
the same thing ! — " If the object of faith were not 
" one and the same both to us and to them, then it 
" would follow that we were to know God some other 
" way than by the Spirit ! " — that is, (is it not?) un- 
less God is known in the same way, it cannot be the 
same God that is known : — unless faith in God arise, 
in every case, from immediate inspiration, it cannot 
be the same God that is the object of it : — unless all 
believers are, in the same sense as prophets and 



85 

apostles, inspired men, there are no believers ! — That 
I am not doing Barclay injustice, or stretching his 
language beyond its legitimate meaning, in consider- 
ing him, when he speaks of knowing God only by 
the Spirit, as meaning, not the mere communication 
of the spiritual discernment of truth already reveal- 
ed, but the immediate revelation of it to the mind, 
is apparent from the fact of his applying freely 
to all believers the promises which Jesus made to 
those commissioned ambassadors who were to con- 
vey, with accredited authority, his doctrines and 
commandments to men. Here, we apprehend, re- 
spected friends, lies one leading mistake amongst 
you. I make it my second particular, in illustration 
of Barclay's confusion of ideas arising from his prime 
fallacy. 

He confounds, I say, in the second place, direct 
and proper inspiration with the ordinary illuminations 
of the Spirit of God. Jesus says to his apostles, 
John xvi. 12 — 15. " I have yet many things to say 
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit 
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
you into all truth : for he shall not speak of himself; 
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak : 
and he will show you things to come. He shall glo- 
rify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall show 
it unto you. All things that the Father hath are 
mine : therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, 

H 



86 

and shall show it unto you." — On the ground of such 
assurances it is, that, for the full revelation of the 
mind and will of the Lord, we look to those writings 
of his apostles which were given to the world subse- 
quently to the period when they obtained " the pro- 
mise of the Father," the gift of the Spirit, for which 
they had been commanded to wait ; and that we 
demonstrate the unreasonableness of Socinians, in 
undervaluing the apostolic epistles, which were the 
results of their full inspiration. Yet by Barclay, such 
promises, instead of being appropriated to the apos- 
tles, are interpreted as belonging, indiscriminately, to 
all believers. I am not disposed to question the pro- 
priety of so interpreting some of the things contain- 
ed in the valedictory address of the Saviour from 
which the preceding verses are quoted, respecting the 
mission and work of the Spirit. What is said, for 
example, of his " convincing the world of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment," relates to his opera- 
tion in the conversion of men by means of the min- 
istry of those whom he was, at the same time, to 
endow for that ministry by his plenary inspiration ; 
and what is subsequently said of his agency as the 
paraclete, — the comforter, or monitor, of his people, 
though primarily meant for the encouragement of the 
servants of the Lord, in sustaining the trials and 
conflicting with the difficulties of their work, it would 
yet be as hypercritical as it would be disheartening, 



87 

to restrict to them alone. But to infer from this, 
that the whole of what is promised to the apostles is 
equally promised to all the followers of Christ, is to 
run far and wildly to the opposite extreme. When 
Jesus promises his Spirit, to supply to them the de- 
ficiency of his own present instructions, — to " lead 
them into all truth," — and to " bring all things to 
their remembrance, whatsoever he had said unto 
them;" he gives them, by the latter of these expres- 
sions, the assurance of so full and perfect a recollec- 
tion of the doings and sayings of their Master, as 
should enable them to record them for mankind, 
without the possibility of inaccuracy or mistake; and 
by the former, the still further assurance of so full a 
discovery to their minds of the entire system of evan- 
gelical truth, as should fit them for being the infalli- 
ble teachers of that truth to the world. — Is this, then, 
a promise, I ask you, to be interpreted as the com- 
mon privilege of believers ? — nay, your system, I 
presume, if consistent witli itself, would warrant 
my extending the question still more widely, and 
saying — of believers and unbelievers; — for your 
universal light, which is identified by you with the 
promised illumination of the Spirit, is not of course 
confined to the believing followers of Christ, but 
common to them, as the result of his mediation, with 
mankind at large ! — the Christ ivithin (which, in 
your peculiar phraseology, is the same with the Holy 
h 2 



88 

Spirit) " enlightening every man that cometh into 
the world." — If the promise of being " led into all 
truth" — that is, directly and independently of all 
human means, were to be interpreted as extending 
to all even of the disciples of Jesus, would not such 
interpretation go far to supersede the necessity of the 
Scriptures as the source of instruction, and so (as 
stated in my last letter) to annihilate, or at least very 
greatly to diminish, the inducement to the study of 
them ? But I must go a step further. I ask you 
another question. You will not deny, that, in order 
to any one's being a disciple of Jesus, he must know 
the doctrines of Jesus ; and, as these doctrines are 
inseparably associated with certain facts, he must 
know those facts,- — the facts of the gospel history. 
Now, the question I have to ask is simply this— Are 
you aware of any instances, or even of one single 
instance, in which these facts have come to be known 
by direct communication to the mind from the Spirit 
of God, independently of any acquaintance with the 
Scripture record itself, or of any information imparted 
by those who had derived their knowledge from it ? — 
There is, I apprehend, on this subject, a good deal 
amongst you of a loose and indefinite phraseology, 
which, when examined, means nothing ; when put 
into the crucible, and exposed to the furnace of cri- 
ticism, evaporates, and leaves no residuum. You 
speak of it as the common privilege of God's people. 



89 

under the new covenant dispensation, that they are 
directly " led by the Spirit into all truth," that they 
" have an unction from the Holy One, and know all 
things," that " they need not any man to teach them." 
But I repeat and press the question, Has the know- 
ledge of gospel facts, on which gospel doctrines are 
founded, ever been imparted to any mind, since the 
time when " the vision and the prophecy were seal- 
ed up" in Patmos, without the instrumental means 
(directly or indirectly employed) of the written 
record ? If you say, that a man may be a disciple 
of Christ, by having the Christ within, independently 
of all knowledge of the Christ without, — which would 
amount to the same thing with saying, that he may 
be " led into all truth," and " know all things," in- 
dependently of any acquaintance with the funda- 
mental facts of the evangelical history, — I can only 
answer, in the words of Sterne, <; That I deny ;" and 
I am supported in the denial of it by the entire 
. tenor of the New Testament. Such an assertion, 
indeed, would carry us beyond the limits of the 
written record, — beyond the bounds of reason and 
common sense, — and land us in the region of spirit- 
ual meteorology and mysticism, — the plenum in va- 
cuo, the fulness of nothing, — where all is lightness 
and vertigo, and there is no rest for the sole of the 
foot. When Paul tells me, that he " determined not 
to know any thing/' in his preaching, " save Jesus 
h3 



90 

Christ, and him crucified ;" — when he exhibits the 
substance of the gospel preached by him as consist- 
ing in the facts that " Christ died for our sins ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and 
that he rose again the third day according to the 
Scriptures ;" I have something palpable, of which 
my mind has a distinct and firm apprehension. But 
when I am told of the " Lamb slain " meaning the 
" light or principle of life" in man " resisted and 
grieved;" — of the Christ within and his " spiritual 
flesh and blood ;" — of this flesh and blood being " the 
same as the light that enlighteneth every man ;" — of 
" the outward Lamb" being but a type, or " showing 
forth of the inward Lamb ;" in a word, as Mr New- 
ton expresses it, of " inward mediation, inward atone- 
ment, inward spiritual blood ;" — when from the Christ 
to whom the gospel bears testimony, the Christ 
born in Bethlehem, agonizing in Gethsemane, and 
dying on Calvary, as the atonement for the sins of the 
world, my attention is thus drawn to an undefinable 
sentimental something within myself, — not an ex- 
ercise of mind relative to this external Saviour, by 
which, through the influence of the Spirit, I become 
interested in the merits of his obedience and sacri- 
fice, — but something that, under the various designa- 
tions of spirit within, light within, Christ within, 
principle of life, inward spiritual blood, &c. &c. is 
my Saviour, my true and only Saviour, which the 



91 

outward Christ only represented and shadowed forth ; 
— I feel that I am " moved away from the hope of 
the gospel," — that which is the ground of my hope 
not being the very Christ that suffered on the cross, 
and put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, but a 
principle within, of which his name only furnishes 
one of the designations : — " Christ in you the hope 
of glory" being interpreted, not of Christ the incar- 
nate Son of God, the Word made flesh, " dwelling 
in the heart by faith" as the object of that heart's 
devoted love, which is the plain and simple meaning 
of the apostle's words, — but of this abstract impal- 
pable Christ within ; of which the very variety of 
its designations shows how confused is the concep- 
tion, and of which, the more is said to explain and 
define it, that conception becomes the more obscure, 
shadowy, and shapeless. — But I am forgetting myself; 
— I must not diverge further from the point I was 
discussing — namely, that by Barclay and others, 
proper inspiration is confounded with the ordinary 
illumination of the Spirit. The former was promised 
by Christ to his apostles ; and the promise was ful- 
filled on the memorable day of Pentecost. The very 
terms of the promise, it might be farther observed, 
appropriate it to them ; " bringing all things to their 
remembrance' applying with no propriety to any 
others than to those who had been the attendants on 
his ministry " all the while that he went in and out 



92 

amongst them," — who had " seen, and heard, and 
looked upon, and handled" him. — With regard to 
the latter, I would only say farther, that the Christ 
who is the object of saving knowledge and faith, is 
the Christ revealed in the gospel testimony, the Jesus 
of Nazareth, of whose birth, and life, and doctrines, 
and miracles, and sufferings, and death, and resurrec- 
tion, and ascension to glory, the inspired apostles 
bear witness ; — and that it is neither by the Spirit 
independently of the word that this Christ is sav- 
ingly known, nor by the word independently of the 
Spirit. It is by both ; by the Word as the instru- 
mental means, by the Spirit as the efficient agent. 
In the word, the person, character, and work of Christ 
are the subject of inspired testimony ; by the Spirit, 
the moral blindness of the sinner to the glories of his 
person, the beauties of his character, and the divine 
wonders of his work, is, by an operation of which 
the nature and mode are to us inscrutable, graciously 
removed ; and, the instant this " spiritual discern- 
ment" is imparted, he receives Christ, and Christ is 
" in him, the hope of glory." Thus Christ and the 
Spirit have their distinct and proper places. By you 
they are confounded and identified ; the light within 
being used convertibly with both the Spirit within 
and the Christ within. Thus too inspiration and 
spiritual illumination are duly distinguished ; the 
former being the direct and infallible revelation of 



93 

truth to the mind, — the latter, the discernment by the 
mind of the divine excellence and suitableness of the 
truth so revealed. 

Under Proposition II., at the close of Section IX. , 
Barclay says : — " What is proper in this place to be 
" proved is, that Christians now are to be led in- 
" wardly and immediately by the Spirit of God, even 
" in the same manner (though it befall not many to 
<f be led in the same measure) as the saints were of 
"■old." — On the first reading of this sentence, I mar- 
velled greatly. Understanding by the saints of old, 
those who lived under the former dispensation, it 
seemed very strange, and very inconsistent, to repre- 
sent a dispensation, of which the characteristic dis- 
tinction is its being (i the ministration of the Spirit," 
as more restricted than the former in the abundance 
of spiritual influence ; so that the possession of that 
influence in a superior measure should be found in 
cases of rare exception only to the average ratio. 
On looking forward, however, I perceived, from the 
passages of Scripture quoted in proof, — which are 
principally the promises already referred to in the 
gospel by John, and certain promises of the Spirit 
given by the Old Testament prophets in their antici- 
pations of gospel days, — that by the " saints of old," 
when contrasted with saints now, he means rather 
those who lived in " the beginning of the gospel;" 
and the restriction of the immediate communications 



94 

of the Spirit in more modern times, he must consider 
as arising, not from any limitation in the promises 
themselves, but from the prevailing want of faith in 
them among professed believers. But then, when he 
speaks of " Christians now being led inwardly and 
immediately by the Spirit of God, in the same man- 
ner as the saints of old," he takes it for granted that 
it was the universal privilege of the " saints of old" 
to be led thus " inwardly and immediately " by the 
Spirit. The question, then, comes to be, what does 
he mean by this "inward and immediate" leading? 
— and, from the entire tenor of his proofs and illus- 
trations, it is manifest that he means the same kind 
of direct inspiration which was bestowed upon the 
apostles and others, to qualify them as the infallible 
messengers of truth to mankind. It is no wonder, 
that, with this conception of divine influence, he 
should represent an equal measure of it as now-a- 
days a rarity ! — limited, we may presume, to the 
Friends, who believe in it and look for it, and even 
amongst them, presenting itself only occasionally in 
instances of distinguished faith ! But we distinctly 
deny that this immediate communication of divine 
truth to the mind, independently of the intervention 
of human teaching, roas the common privilege of the 
saints of old, any more than it is of the saints now. 
We conceive that it was from those " holy men of 
God who spoke and wrote as they were moved by 



95 

the Holy Ghost." that the great general body of 
believers received their knowledge ; — while, at the 
same time, this knowledge, though imparted by their 
instrumentality, was discerned and received under 
the illumination of the Spirit of God. This we 
take to be the plain testimony of the inspired 
writers themselves ; in proof of which passages from 
their writings might be multiplied. A few must 
suffice. — To the Corinthians he says — " Who, then, 
is Paul, and who is A polios, but ministers, by whom 
ye believed, even as God gave to every man ?" I 
Cor. iii. 5. Paul had come to Corinth, " declaring 
unto them the testimony of God;" the testimony, 
namely, concerning " Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
fied:" chap. ii. 1, 2. This testimony, communicated 
to them by his instrumentality, they had believed. 
It was he who taught them " the things of the Spirit 
of God;" while, at the same time, it was by a higher 
teaching than his, even by the accompanying illumi- 
nation of the Holy Spirit himself, that they " spiritu- 
ally discerned" their truth and excellence, and re- 
ceived them, as no longer " foolishness," but " the 
wisdom of God:" chap. ii. 14. — " When ye received 
the word of God," says he to the believers at Thes- 
salonica, " which ye heard of us, ye received it not 
as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word 
of God, which effectually worketh also in you that 
believe." 1 Thess. ii. 13. — To the Galatians — 



96 

" Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach unto 
you any other gospel than that which we have preach- 
ed unto you, let him be accursed : — as I said before, 
so say I now again, if any man preach unto you any 
other gospel than that ye have received, let him be 
accursed." Gal. i. 8, 9. They received it, then, not 
by any direct revelation, but by the preaching of this 
commissioned and accredited ambassador. — To the 
Corinthians again — " I declare unto you the gos- 
pel which I preached unto you, which also ye have 
received, and wherein ye stand : by the w r hich also 
ye are saved, if ye hold fast what I preached unto 
you, unless ye have believed in vain." 1 Cor. xv. 1, 
2, — The style of other apostles is the same. " That 
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, 
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have 
looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the 
Word of Life : — that which we have seen and heard 
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship 
with us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, 
and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things 
write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This, 
then, is the message which we have heard of him, and 
declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is 
no darkness at all." 1 John i. 1, 3 — 5. And this 
style, which pervades their writings, is in full accord- 
ance with the terms of their commission from their 
divine Master, by which they were constituted the 



97 

authoritative teachers of mankind, — his witnesses^ 
whom he was to accompany with satisfactory cre- 
dentials, and so to sanction their testimony : — " Then 
opened he their understandings, that they might un- 
derstand the Scriptures ; and said unto them, Thus 
it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to sur- 
fer, and to rise from the dead the third day ; and that 
repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
in his name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusa- 
lem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And 
behold I send the promise of my Father upon you ; 
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be 
endued with power from on high." Luke xxiv. 45 — 
49. 

This view of the divine procedure makes all suffi- 
ciently plain. There were inspired men, to whom 
the truth was communicated by direct revelation. 
They were commissioned to be the instructors of 
others, — the medium of communication to the rest 
of mankind ; and their commission was attested by 
adequate credentials. At the same time, so hostile 
was the natural mind to the reception of the message 
they brought, that the agency of the divine Spirit 
was necessary to its being discerned by any in its 
truth and excellence, and received in the love of it 
And so the case remains. They are still his witnesses. 
Their inspired writings are the same in authority with 
what was uttered by their living voice. By these, 
i 



98 

" they, being dead, yet speak ; " and the Spirit still 
makes the truth which they have there recorded " the 
power of God unto salvation. " — The language of 
Barclay, quoted above, implies that, " though it be- 
fall not many," yet it does befall some, to be " led 
inwardly and immediately by the Spirit of God," 
not only " in the same manner" but even " in the 
same measure^ with the " saints of old :" — that is, 
that there are still a few to be found, however rare, 
who enjoy immediate revelation, in the same degree 
as the apostles ; for he quotes the promise to the 
apostles in proof of it, about their being " led into 
all truth !" And, although he does not affirm that 
there are many who have inspiration in the same 
measure, he does affirm, that not only many but all 
believers, under the new economy, have it in the 
same manner or kind. This, I repeat, arises from 
confounding the extraordinary with the ordinary 
operations of the Spirit. The truth is, that none 
now have either the same measure or the same kind 
of inspiration ; inspiration, properly so called, having 
ceased, when the canon of revealed truth was com- 
pleted in the Scriptures. All have the same amount 
of privilege, in having the full discovery of the Di- 
vine Mind in this completed canon ; while, in regard 
to the enlightening, sanctifying, gladdening, direct- 
ing, and strengthening influences of the Spirit, the 
command to all is, " Ask, and ye shall receive." 



99 

I have to notice* thirdly, that Mr Barclay greatly 
misapprehends, not to say misrepresents, the senti- 
ments of those whom he opposes. — Thus, in speaking 
of the sameness of the object of the saints' faith in 
every age, he writes : — " Such as deny this proposi- 
" tion now-a-days use here a distinction, granting 
" that God is to be known by his Spirit, but again 
" denying that it is immediate or inward, but in and 
" by the Scriptures; in which the mind of the Spirit 
" (as they say) being fully and amply expressed, we 
" are thereby to know God, and be led in all things." * 
— Now the words " immediate or inward" are mis- 
leading. The two terms are not synonymous. To 
deny that spiritual influence is immediate, and to 
deny that it is inward, are not the same thing. Who 
amongst us denies the latter? There have been 
some, I am aware, who held the sentiment, and there 
are some who hold it still, that the sole agency of the 
Spirit consists in the inspiration by which the Scrip- 
tures were given ; and that those Scriptures now 
operate of themselves, independently of any accom- 
panying influence. But this is not the view held by 
any who pass under the common designation of evan- 
gelical. They are far from maintaining that the 
operation of the word and the operation of the Spirit 
are one and the same, or (for to this it amounts) that 

* Apol. page 39. 

i 2 



100 

there is no operation of the Spirit at all, but only of 
the word which he has dictated. We hold that there 
is an operation of the Spirit ; an inward operation ; 
an operation on the mind. But we hold, at the same 
time, that this operation is with or by the truth, 
agreeably to the explicit testimonies of inspired 
apostles : — James i. 18, "Of his own will begat he 
us, by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of 
first-fruits of his creatures:'* — 1 Pet. i. 23, " Being 
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorrup- 
tible, by the viord of God, which liveth and abideth 
for ever : — And this is the word, which by the gos- 
pel is preached unto you." — And the same word con- 
tinues, under the influence of the same Spirit, the 
instrumental means of progressive sanctification : — 
" When ye received the word of God which ye heard 
of us, ye received it not as the word of man, but, as 
it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually 
worketh also in you that believe :" — " He that is 
born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed re- 
maineth in him" — (that is, the incorruptible seed of 
the word) — " and he cannot sin, because he is born 
of God." 1 Thess. ii. 13. 1 John iii. 9. — In as far, 
however, as the operation of the Spirit is inward, 
there is a sense in which it is also immediate : — that 
is, it is not an operation upon the truth ; for of this 
it is impossible to form any conception whatever : — 
it is an operation upon the mind, when the truth is> 



101 

or has been, presented to it, — an operation, of which 
the mode is beyond our distinct apprehension, John 
iii. 8. but the reality of which is evinced in its re- 
sults. When we deny it to be, in the Quaker sense, 
immediate, we mean that it does not consist in any 
direct communication of truth to the mind, independ- 
ently of the existing revelation in the Holy Scriptures; 
but only in such a removal of the mind's natural 
blindness (a blindness arising from moral causes) as 
imparts a spiritual discernment of the excellence, and 
suitableness, and glory of the truth there revealed. 
It is immediate, as being upon the mind ; it is me- 
diate, as being by the truth. 

A fourth and most glaring exemplification of the 
confusion arising from the adoption of a fallacious 
principle, is, Mr Barclay's confounding the truth of 
what God reveals with the reality of the revelation. 
No two things, surely, can be more distinct than 
these: yet mark how he writes, when he is proceeding 
to answer objections to the second part of his second 
proposition. — In that proposition he had affirmed, 
in regard to the " divine revelation, " or inward illu- 
mination," for which he contends, its independence of 
any a more noble or certain rule and touchstone," 
whether it be " the outward testimony of the Scrip- 
" tures, or the natural reason of man ;" asserting it 
to be as " evident and clear of itself," and as assur- 
edly " forcing by its own evidence and clearness, the 
i3 



102 

" well-disposed understanding to assent, irresistibly 
" moving the same thereunto, even as the common 
" principles of natural truths do move and incline the 
"mind to a natural assent: as, that the whole is 
" greater than its part ; that two contradictories can- 
" not be both true nor both false/'* — Now, I have 
already asked — even on the supposed admission of 
the confidence being legitimate that is placed in this 
immediate revelation by those who are themselves 
the subjects of it, what is it to others? Are others 
to trust to it, without any credentials produced on the 
part of those who pretend to it? Mr Barclay seems 
to have felt the fairness and the force of this objec- 
tion, and even, (notwithstanding the strong terms 
used by him in his proposition) of the objection taken 
from the possible uncertainty to the very person him- 
self, of the reality of the communication : — " The 
most usual objection,'' says he, " is, that these reve- 
" lations are uncertain* — But this bespeaketh much 
" ignorance in the opposers : for we distinguish be- 
" tween the thesis and the hypothesis, — that is, be- 
" tween the proposition and supposition. For it is 
" one thing to affirm, that the true and undoubted 
" revelation of God^s will is certain and infallible ; 
" and another thing to affirm that this or that parti- 
" cular person or people is led infallibly by this reve- 

* Apol. page 19. 



103 

" lation in what they speak or write, because they 
" affirm themselves to be led by the inward and im- 
" mediate revelation of the Spirit. The first only is 
u asserted by us ; the latter may be called in ques- 
" tion. The question is not, who are or are not so 
" led ? — but whether all ought not or may not be so 
"led?"* 

11 The first only is asserted by us" What is it ? 
" That the true and undoubted revelation of God's 
" Spirit is certain and infallible ! " And is this really 
what Mr B. and his friends assert? — this all that they 
assert? this truism, — which, it may be presumed, 
there never existed a creature possessing reason, on 
earth or in the universe, that could question? — 
Surely you must at once be sensible of this extraor- 
dinary fallacy. The point in question between us 
has no relation to the infallible certainty of what 
God reveals, but solely to the reality of the revela- 
tion. If this be ascertained, there can be no doubt 
about the other. — It is here admitted by Barclay, 
that a man may " affirm himself to be led by the 
inward and immediate revelation of the Spirit," and 
yet that his authority may be w called in question," 
— doubted, that is, and disbelieved : — which amounts 
to the same thing as admitting that the man himself 
may be deceived! The query, therefore, comes 

* Apol. page 53. 



104 

back upon us, What is the test ? Are the immediate 
suggestions professedly received by one man, to be 
judged of by the immediate suggestions professedly re- 
ceived by another? Which have the claim to prefer- 
ence ? One man is as much entitled to dispute the 
alleged revelations of another, as the other can be 
to dispute his. Is there no determinate common 
standard for both? — When Barclay says, " The 
" question is not, who are or are not so led ; but whe- 
" ther all ought not or may not be so led;" he surely 
deludes himself. For, in the first place, the proposi- 
tion that " all ought to be, or may be, so led," is by 
no means an identical proposition with that which he 
had just stated to be the affirmation of Friends, — 
namely, that " the true and undoubted revelation of 
God's Spirit is certain and infallible :" — and secondly, 
Of what avail can the admission be, that " all ought 
" to be, or may be, so led," if there be no means 
of determining with certainty when they are so led ? 
If this be left indeterminate, the proposition is the 
most useless and futile imaginable. — Yet, according 
to Barclay, the professed subject of immediate reve- 
lation may deceive himself. What, then, are others 
to do with his alleged communications? Are they 
not entitled to demand credentials? Assuredly. For, 
observe, — even on the assumption that the Scriptures 
were admitted to be the test, it is not enough that such 
communications abide the test This, I say, is not 



105 

enough. They may be in harmony with the test, and 
yet, as revelations made ?ioiv, they may have no autho- 
rity* The revelations made to one Scripture writer 
were in perfect harmony with those made to another; 
but each had the authority of a distinct revelation. The 
authority of what was revealed to Jeremiah did not 
arise from its agreement with what had been revealed 
to Isaiah ; nor the authority of what was revealed to 
Peter from its agreement with what had been revealed 
to Paul. The authority in each w r as distinct and in- 
dependent, — each producing his credentials of inspi- 
ration. We distinctly deny, — not merely, with you, 
that any thing can be a revelation from the Spirit 
now that is not in agreement with the Scriptures ; 
but that there are any new revelations now at all, 
whether in harmony with the Scriptures or not, — 
any thing possessing the same authority. We deny 
that there can be any thing additional, as well as any 
thing contradictory, — It is plain, that one revelation 
from the Spirit of truth cannot possess more autho- 
rity than another. If, therefore, there really be such 
revelations now, they must have the same title to be 
standards of the recorded revelations, as the recorded 
revelations have to be standards of them : — Barclay 
to be the test of Paul, as Paul to be the test of Bar- 
clay ! Are any of the Friends, then, prepared to 
place any of the writings of Fox, or Penn, or Bar- 
clay, or Gurney, on the same footing, in point of 



106 

authority, with those of Jeremiah and Isaiah, of 
Peter and Paul ? If they refuse to do so, they seem 
to me virtually to abandon their principles. For the 
doctrine of immediate revelation necessarily involves 
equal authority in all who possess it ; — nay, accord- 
ing to them, the Spirit himself being superior to any 
external revelation, the immediate intimations re- 
ceived from Him now, ought, in their estimation, if 
they are consistent with themselves, to be, of the 
two, the test of superior certainty ! Yet alas ! for 
the Friends, if we come to this ! It will then be 
requisite for us, to admit se/f- contradiction, and mu- 
tual contradiction, amongst the evidences of inspira- 
tion ; nothing being more certain, than that Barclay 
is inconsistent with himself, and that Barclay and 
Gurney (to enumerate no more) are inconsistent 
with each other. — And look to the condition of your 
Society at the present moment. Is it the same Spirit 
that is dictating all the variety of discordant senti- 
ment by which it is distracted? It will not avail any 
of you, in this any more than in a former connexion, 
to reply to such questions by pointing to the differ- 
ences subsisting amongst commentators on the Scrip- 
tures, and amongst the members of other bodies of 
Christians. The cases, as before, are widely differ- 
ent. You claim the privilege of immediate inspira- 
tion. Now such inspiration, if really possessed, must 
be uniform; its dictates all consistent with each other, 



107 

as is the case with the Scripture writers ; and the 
very absence of such consistency is sufficient to dis- 
prove the validity of the claim. But commentators 
claim no such authority for their expositions, nor the 
members of other Christian communities for their 
respective standards. Differences among them, there- 
fore, are no more than what might be expected, from 
the diversified endowments, and the constitutional 
and acquired biasses, of different human minds. But 
the system which makes pretensions to immediate 
revelation becomes, by such contradictions and in- 
consistencies, felo de se; inasmuch as each section of 
the upholders of the system make the same preten- 
sion, and consequently show, in their differences, one 
or other of two things, — either that the Spirit of God 
is not one, or that they have not the Spirit of God, — 
I mean, of course, in the sense in which they pretend 
to it : — and between these two conclusions, who will 
hesitate ? 

There is another point, I may notice fifthly > in re- 
gard to which Barclay is very inconsistent with him- 
self, and in which his inconsistency springs from the 
same source as in the other cases, — namely, the ful- 
ness of the canon of holy writ, — or, in other words, 
the completeness of the Scriptures as a discovery of 
divine truth. This he appears to affirm and deny, 
to admit and retract, in the most extraordinary man- 
ner. He seems, for example, in totidem verbis, to 



108 

grant that the Scriptures are the test of religious 
truth, when, in a passage already cited, he says — 
" Moreover, because they are commonly acknow- 
" ledged by all to have been written by the dictates 
" of the Holy Spirit, and that the errors which may 
" be supposed by the injury of times, to have slipped 
" in, are not such, but there is a sufficient clear tes- 
" timony left to all the essentials of the Christian 
" faith ; we do look upon them as the only Jit outward 
"judge of controversies among Christians ; and that 
" whatsoever doctrine is contrary unto their testi- 
i( mony may therefore justly be rejected as false. 
" And for our parts we are very willing that all our 
" doctrines and practices be tried by them ; which 
" we never refused, nor ever shall, in all controver- 
sies with our adversaries, as the judge and test. 
" We shall also be very willing to admit it as a posi- 
" tive certain maxim, that whatsoever any do, pre- 
" tending to the Spirit, which is contrary to the 
" Scriptures, be accounted and reckoned a delusion 
"of the devil." — Bating the slur that is, here and 
elsewhere, in this author s writings, thrown upon the 
Scriptures, as if the variety and accumulation of cor- 
ruptions had been such, as to render it quite as much 
as he could conscientiously admit, that they still con- 
tain " a sufficient clear testimony left to the essen- 
" tials of the Christian faith;" — as if this testimony 
were " left" amidst a great deal that had been lost 



109 

or wrapt in obscurity by these corruptions ! — a slur 
that is as false as it is insidious and mischievous ; — 
bating this, I say, the admission contained in these 
sentences might be regarded as, in no small degree, 
satisfactory. But alas! for Barclay's consistency! 
In the very next page, he writes thus : — " For if the 
" Jews were directed to try all things by their law, 
" which was without them, written in tables of stone; 
" then, if we will have this advice of the prophet to 
<c reach us," (the advice " To the law and to the 
Testimony ; if they speak not according to this 
word, there is no light in them,") " we must make 
" it hold parallel to that dispensation of the gospel 
" which we are under : so that we are to try all 
" things, in the first place, by that word of faith which 
u is preached unto us, which the apostle saith is in 
" the heart, and by that law which God hath given 
u us, which the apostle saith also expressly is written 
u and placed in the mind/ * 

What a tissue, either of illogical fallacies, or of 
Jesuitical subtleties, is here ! " I speak as to wise 
men : judge ye what I say." — 1. In the sentences 
immediately preceding those quoted, Barclay throws 
out a doubt, whether, when the prophet, or Jehovah 
by the prophet, makes his appeal " to the law and to 
the testimony," this law and testimony might not 

* Apoi. page 87. 
K 



no 

even then signify the inward and not the outward 
word ! He alleges, that affirming it to signify the 
latter is a begging of the question ! It is surely 
marvellous, that any man, with the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament, and still more with those of the New, 
in his hand, should be bold enough even to throw out 
the surmise of such an interpretation ; should venture 
even to hint, that " the law and the testimony" may- 
mean any thing else than the revelation then exist- 
ing, as communicated to Moses and the prophets. It 
is such an outrage on all the candour of criticism, as 
to render a refutation of it an insult to the reader's 
understanding. It were every whit as reasonable to 
allege, that, when our Lord said to the lawyer who 
tempted him, " What is written in the law ? how 
readest thou ?" — he meant the inward, not the out- 
ward, law, — the law in the heart, not the law in the 
Book ! Or that, when the Psalmist says — " He 
established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law 
in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they 
should make them known to their children ;" — he 
might perhaps mean, not the external, but the inter- 
nal word ! — 2. Apparently sensible that such an ex- 
planation would not itself bear the test of " the law 
and the testimony," whether outward or inward, he 
proceeds to institute a contrast between the outward 
law of the Jews and the inward law of Christians : — 
" it may be confessed, without any prejudice to our 



Ill 

w cause, that the outward law was more particularly 
" to the Jews a rule, and more principally than to 
" us ; seeing their law was outward and literal, but 
" ours, under the new covenant, is expressly affirmed 
" to be inward and spiritual ; so that this Scripture 
" is so far from making against us, that it makes for 
" us." * — But this is miserable confusion. First of 
all, Barclay seems altogether to forget, that the same 
law may be both outward and inward, — in the book 
and in the heart. It was as much the duty of the 
Jews to have the law in their hearts, as it is of Chris- 
tians. It was the express command of Jehovah that 
they should : — " And these words, which I command 
thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt 
teach them diligently to thy children." The words 
of divine instruction and precept were externally 
given by Moses ; but it was, at the same time, the 
duty of every Israelite to believe, and love, and obey 
them. — And this leads me to notice further, that the 
promise " I will put my laws in their inward parts, 
and will write them in their hearts," has no reference 
whatever to any such fancied privilege as individual 
and immediate revelation of truth or of duty. The 
promise relates to laws already existing, — and signi- 
fies the imparting, not merely of a speculative ac- 
quaintance with these laws to the understanding, but 

* Apol., page 87. 
K 2 



112 

©fa right disposition towards them in the heart, — or, 
in one word, the implanting there of that love which 
is " the fulfilling of the law," — the primary and the 
secondary love, love to God, and love to men. — To 
interpret it, as if it meant, that, whereas outward 
revelation was the standard of truth and duty to the 
Israelites, inward personal immediate revelation is the 
standard to us, is not only to assign to Christians a 
test less fixed and certain, — proved so by all experi- 
ence, — than that which was enjoyed by God's people 
under the old economy, but to render the full and 
clear discoveries of the New Testament Scriptures 
of less real use to us than the comparatively dark and 
limited discoveries of the Old were to them. — 3. If 
" the law and the testimony " are not now to be un- 
derstood of the outward word, — if under the new 
dispensation, we are to " try all things, in the first 
place" by the " word of faith in the heart," then is 
the outward word, as a test, entirely superseded. If 
the inward word, or immediate revelation, is the dis- 
tinguishing privilege of believers under the gospel 
economy; then, to make use of the outward is to act 
inconsistently with the divine intention, and to go 
back to the " beggarly elements" and stinted privileges 
of Judaism. If we have fulfilled the duty of " trying 
all things in the first place" by the primary and 
higher test, what use can there be for the lower and 
secondary? It can be nothing better than mockery, 



113 

after deciding by the first test (which of course, as 
being the first, must be the more infallible criterion 
of the two) to talk of applying the second. So that 
all he had said about the Scriptures as " the only fit 
" outward judge of controversies among Christians" 
comes to nothing. I can see consistency and pro- 
priety in ascending, in the way of appeal, from an 
inferior to a superior tribunal ; but what consistency 
or propriety can there be, in obtaining, " in the first 
place," the decision of the superior court, and then 
coming down to the inferior ? Would not such a 
process imply an impeachment of the former's com- 
petency ? And is there not, in all that Barclay says 
about the Scriptures as the standard of doctrine and 
duty, a reflexion involved against the competency of 
the very test to which he gives the primary place and 
authority? — Nor is this all. — 4. When the Scriptures 
(however inconsistently) are admitted as a test; then 
the question occurs — Of what are they the test? — 
what is it we are to try by them ? Is it not the very 
dictates of inward revelation (so called) themselves ? 
What else is there to be tried ? But if so, how 
strange the anomalies to which this gives rise ! — 
When inward or immediate revelation is represented 
as the test by which, " in the first place," we are to 
" try all things," then it becomes the test of itself ; — 
the rule, and the chief rule, by which the authority 
of its own intimations is to be ascertained ! And 
k 3 



114 

then, when the Scriptures are spoken of as the stand- 
ard, we have the inferior constituted the test of the 
superior ; the secondary test the test of the primary- 
test ! the outward standard the standard of the in- 
ward standard ! the dictates of the Spirit placed 
above the external word, and high things said about 
the unreasonableness of subjecting the spiritual people 
of God, under the spiritual dispensation of the new 
covenant, to any merely external rule, or bounding 
and binding them by a " filled canon ;" — and yet the 
canon, such as it is, though denied to be a filled or 
complete one, admitted to be an adequate criterion 
of every thing pretending to be a dictate of the Spirit 
now, — and the " external rule" ruling the spiritual 
rule, and determining the legitimacy of all its pre- 
scriptions ! — Such are the inconsistencies resulting 
from a fallacious principle. The truth is, a " filled 
canon" is one of the blessed privileges of the New 
Testament church; the chief of those " better things" 
which " God had prepared for us, that the Old Tes- 
tament saints without us should not be made perfect;" 
■ — and — (pardon me, my friends, I speak in zeal for 
God's word, not in disrespect for you) — all the mag- 
niloquence of Quakerism about a higher standard is 
no better than " great swelling words of vanity." — 
o. What Barclay says about " the word of faith 
which is preached unto us, which the apostle saith is 
in the hearty is most extraordinary. When Paul 



115 

speaks of its being in the heart, does he mean that it 
was there by immediate revelation, independently of 
outward teaching ? — that it was preached there di- 
rectly by the Holy Spirit ? To make his language 
of any avail, to Barclay's purpose, such ought to be 
the apostle's meaning. But what are Paul's own 
words? " The word is very nigh thee, in thy mouth 
and in thine heart, that is the word of faith which we 
preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God 
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 
— It was the word, then, which the inspired ambas- 
sadors preached, and which they who had it in their 
hearts had received from them. And on the same 
principle he goes on to ask " How shall they believe 
in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall 
they hear without a preacher ?" Moses was the giver 
of that law, of which, in the terms appropriated and 
applied by Paul to the gospel, he tells the Israelites 
that it was " nigh unto them, in their mouth and in 
their heart, that they might do it." Does he mean 
that they had received it by immediate revelation, — 
in the very same breath in which he speaks of him- 
self as the medium of its communication ? If not, 
neither does the apostle. 

With one additional remark, I shall close my stric- 
tures on this subject; a subject, of which the impor- 
tance may have led me, perhaps, into too protracted 



116 

a discussion. The remark is, that it is not easy to 
ascertain, with any thing like precision, what is the 
extent of import which we are to attach to immediate 
revelation, as claimed by the Friends— We have 
seen that there is no pretension made to the revela- 
tion of new truths, but only to the new revelation 
of old ones. Here is one limit; and although we do 
find some of the earlier Quakers laying claim to the 
spirit of prophecy, and foretelling future events; yet 
this is comparatively rare ; and the predictions are 
usually on a very small scale. — The sense most com- 
monly attached to the phrase, in the ordinary use of 
it amongst Friends, appears to be, not so much the 
communication of truth to the mind, as the imme- 
diate superintendence of the Spirit in the direction 
of the conduct. Thus, William Penn, as quoted by 
Evans, in giving a summary of doctrine on this head, 
says — " First, by revelation, we understand the dis- 
" covery and illumination of the light and Spirit of 
" God, relating to those things that properly and 
" immediately concern the daily information and sa- 
" tisfaction of our souls, in the way of our duty to 
" him and our neighbour." And afterwards : — < 
" When neither man nor Scriptures are near us, yet 
66 there continually attends us that Spirit of truth, 
" that immediately informs us of our thoughts, words, 
" and deeds, and gives us true directions what to do, 
" and what to leave undone. Is not this the rule of 



117 

" life ? If ye are led by the Spirit of God, then are 
"ye sons of God."* — What follows in his statement 
relates to doctrine, and amounts to a mere denial, 
under the designation of " fantastical and whimsical 
intoxications," of all " pretences to the revelation of 
" new matter, in opposition to the ancient gospel, de- 
" clared by Christ Jesus and his apostles." " It is 
" not," he says, " the revelation of new things, but the 
" new revelation of the eternal way of truth." — That 
" eternal way of truth," then, is revealed in the 
Scriptures. I ask again what I have asked before, 
was that " eternal way of truth" ever revealed to 
any Friend on earth, independently of the record of 
it in the Scriptures ? Was " the ancient gospel, 
declared by Christ and his apostles," ever received by 
any Friend on earth, by direct communication of the 
Spirit, independently of the declaration of it there ? 
" I trow not." And, if not, then it has been, and 
still is, from the Scriptures after all, and from the 
Scriptures alone, that Friends as well as others have 
obtained, and do obtain, if they have it, the know- 
ledge of that " way of truth" which it is the chief 
design of the Scriptures to reveal, — the " knowledge 
of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom He 
hath sent." Not one amongst them eve?* had this 
knowledge otherwise. No, not one. What, then, 

* Exposition, pages 244, 245. 



118 

becomes of this " new revelation of the eternal way 
of truth ?" What is it ? Where is it ? To whose 
writings are we to look for it ? Is it to those of Fox, 
or Penn, or Barclay ? Has any one of them, or has 
any one else, given us a new revelation of " the an- 
cient gospel declared by Jesus Christ and his apos- 
tles ?" Alas ! if this is pretended, I must be per- 
mitted to say " The old is better." They are but 
human expounders, like others, of divine discoveries; 
from whom we can dissent without presumption ; and 
whom, on some important points, we cannot but re- 
gard, with deep sorrow, as misinterpreters and sub- 
verters of the ancient gospel. They make no pre- 
tensions to the revelation of new truths ; yet if the 
doctrines they teach be truths at all, they are, with- 
out controversy, new truths. Would to God they 
had kept more closely to the old ! They differ from 
the apostles; they differ from one another; they dif- 
fer from themselves. 

While there is no pretension to any thing new in 
the department of doctrine; neither, it is presumed, 
is there any such pretension in the department of 
moral duty. No Quaker pretends to be an inspired 
legislator for others ; but every Quaker does pretend 
to the immediate suggestions of the Spirit, independ- 
ently of the written record, as the rule of his daily 
conduct ; — " when neither man nor Scripture is near 
him." — We have nothing to do with " man ; " but 



119 

what is meant by " Scripture not being near him } H 
You may smile at the question, and reply — Why, 
that he happens not to have his Bible in his pocket. 
But ought it not to be felt the incumbent duty of 
every Christian, to make himself so familiar with the 
principles and precepts of the sacred volume, as that, 
in the ordinary course of life, he shall very seldom 
have occasion for the direct consultation of it? These 
principles and precepts are not so very numerous, 
minute, and complicated, as to render this at all a 
task of difficult accomplishment to any spiritual 
mind. Let me not be misunderstood, as if I were 
setting aside the Spirit's agency in the guidance of 
God's people, and discouraging, consequently, com- 
pliance with the injunction, " Ask, and ye shall re- 
ceive." It is not I that am chargeable with setting 
aside the Spirit; it is the Friends that are chargeable 
with setting aside the word. In regard to duty, as 
in regard to truth, I am for retaining both. It is by 
the ivord that the Spirit guides us to truth, and con- 
ducts us in duty. This is the general principle; and 
it is with general principles, not with special excep- 
tions, I have at present to do. Emergencies may be 
conceivable, cases of sudden and embarrassing per- 
plexity, when " neither man nor Scriptures may be 
near us," when the right application of the general 
principles and preceptive directions of the record may 
not at once be manifest, and when there is little or 



120 

no time for reflexion or for the consultation of our 
guide: — that, in such circumstances, the believer 
should look to God for the influence from above of 
which he feels his need, who will deny? He will do 
it, I had almost said, instinctively. But even in such 
cases, what is his first duty ? Is it to look for the 
Spirit independently of the word ? I say, no. His 
first duty is, to try to recollect the principles and 
precepts of that word, which bear relation to the cir- 
cumstances in which he is placed, and to look for 
grace rightly to apply them. The exceptions sup- 
posed are cases wherein such recollection fails, or 
leaves the mind in perplexity. What I complain of 
is, that the Friends reverse the proper order of pro- 
ceeding; making the general rule the exception, and 
the exception the general rule. The general rule is 
• — " Thy word is a light unto my feet, and a lamp 
unto my path."* The use of the Spirit is, chiefly, 
to give us simplicity of heart in following this light ; 
■ — to remove or counteract those perverse influences 
which so distort or dim the vision as to prevent our 
seeing clearly whither it leads us, or by which we are 
disinclined from following its guidance ; — to impart 
that humble submission of mind and heart to divine 
dictation, to which, under the designation of meek- 
ness, the promise of divine direction is given : — 

* Psalm cxix. 105. 



121 

11 The meek he will guide in judgment ; to the meek 
he will teach his way. 55 * But how does he teach 
him ? — " Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest. 
O Lord, and teachest him out of thy laic"\ And 
what was the method adopted by the Psalmist for 
his preservation from evil ? — " Thy word have I hid 
in my heart, that I might not sin against thee."| 
And this he represents as one of the characteristic 
distinctions of the righteous man : " The law of his 
God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide*' 5 g 
— I greatly fear, that the principle held by Friends 
on this subject is, in more respects than one, emi- 
nently pernicious. It prevents them from feeling the 
necessity of cultivating that familiarity of acquaint- 
ance with the principles and precepts of the divine 
record, which is so very desirable; the word of God, 
dwelling in the heart, being the true " light within' 
for the guidance of the conduct. And, by inducing 
them to give themselves up to a system of impres- 
sions, — to surrender their conduct to the guidance of 
present impulses, — under the notion of obeying the 
Spirit, — to expose themselves to many an illusion, 
and to the danger of many a false step. I should 
tremble to say this, did I think their way was the 
way prescribed in the word. But I think otherwise. 

* Psalm xxv. SW f Psalm xciv. 12. 

\ Psalm cxix. 11. § Psalm xxxvii. 31. 



122 

And I am persuaded that, in not a few cases of truly 
serious Friends, who have been found to ascribe, with 
thankfulness, their preservation in the right way to 
the immediate suggestions of the Holy Spirit, there 
has not, after all, been any material difference, in 
point of fact, whatever there may have been in point 
of theory, between them and those Christians who 
have sought to follow the word with the Spirit's aid ; 
that the dictates of conscience, and the " word of 
Christ dwelling in them," have been what the one as 
well as the other have actually obeyed, although un- 
der different appellations. As to those prototypes of 
Quakerism, who have professed to live under the 
constant guidance of a direct inspiration, of the same 
nature with that possessed by apostles when they 
" assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered 
them not," and " were forbidden of the Holy Spirit 
to preach the word in Asia," I apprehend they exalt 
themselves in professing to exalt the Spirit ; at any 
rate, they exalt the Spirit in themselves at the ex- 
pense of the Spirit in the apostles, by preferring his 
immediate suggestions to his recorded counsels: — 
and by themselves, and by the influence of their 
example, the work of the Spirit has too often been 
degraded, through the frequent littleness, and occa- 
sional ludicrousness, of his alleged intimations, as 
well as, at times, through their very questionable 
propriety. 



123 

In my next Letter, I shall take the liberty of ex- 
amining the doctrine of Friends respecting the " in- 
ward light." 

Yours respectfully, 

R. W. 



l2 



LETTER IV. 

ON UNIVERSAL INWARD LIGHT, 



Respected Friends, 

When I first thought of addressing these 
letters to you, my impression was, that I should not 
experience any great difficulty on such points of the 
controversy between you and other bodies of profess- 
ing Christians, as it was my design to take up. I 
never found myself more mistaken. But observe 
wherein the difficulty has lain. I fancied, that, at 
each step of the controversy, I should have some- 
thing definite with which to grapple. It is here I 
have been disappointed. Those views which have 
been considered as distinctive of the Friends, I have 
found assuming so great a variety of aspects and 
modifications among their own writers ; the phrase- 
ology used, with apparent explicitness, by one, em- 
ployed by another in a sense, however analogous, yet 
so materially different; that I have been greatly at a 
loss, and have at times been about to relinquish my 
purpose, in fretfulness and disgust. For after having, 
in my own mind, and to my own satisfaction, met 



125 

and refuted a particular statement of doctrine, I have 
found it starting up in a new or greatly altered form, 
to which the previous answers were, in some points, 
not at all suitable. If this has been the case with 
regard to the subject of my former letters, it has been 
still more so on that of the present. Never was 
there a more perfect Proteus than your inward light. 
Like every thing mystical, it is undefined, and as 
variable as the mountain mists of the morning. There 
is no catching, no fixing, no analysing it. When 
you think you have got it in something of a tangible 
shape ; when you have put it into your crucible, and 
exposed it to the furnace of criticism, and have eva- 
porated it till you have left no residuum, no sub- 
stance of thought ; — lo ! in the bottom of your ves- 
sel, it reappears in a different form, for which you 
must vary the process of trial ; — and, when this has 
been done, with the same result, you have only to 
begin again. 

Nothing could be easier than, by patching together 
the varied phraseology in which different, or even 
the same writers, have clothed this inward light, to 
invest the whole system with the grotesque and pie- 
bald garment of ludicrous incongruity. I am aware, 
however, that ridicule is not the test of truth ; and 
such a mode of treatment of one of your fundamen- 
tal articles, would ill comport with the avowed kindly 
feeling and friendly design of these letters. That I 
l3 



126 

may not, therefore, either, on the one hand, do in- 
justice to your principles, or, on the other, make one 
writer responsible for the sentiments of another, it is 
my intention, on the present subject, to take up, in 
the first instance, the view of it which is presented 
by your most highly and justly esteemed living wri- 
ter, Joseph John Gurney, — to take that view hy itself, 
independently altogether of the sentiments and lan- 
guage of the more primitive and thorough-going 
Quakers. Many among you, I have reason to think, 
complain of Mr Gurney, as having, on some points, 
laid himself open to the charge of compromising and 
betraying the cause of true primitive Quakerism. 
And assuredly, if such writers as the author of 
" Truth Vindicated" are to be considered as fair ex- 
pounders of your original system, there is ground 
for the imputation ; for between the ancient Quaker- 
ism of Fox, and Penn, and even of Barclay, and the 
modern Quakerism of Mr Gurney, there are differ- 
ences of no trivial amount.— I am desirous, however, 
to do justice to Mr Gurney ; and shall therefore, in 
the first instance, take up his views of the " univer- 
sal light," contained in the " Addendum to Chapter 
I.," in the seventh edition of his " Observations on 
the distinguishing views and practices of the Society 
of Friends." The Addendum bears date " a. d. 
1834." 

I find little that appears objectionable in the gen- 



127 

eral principles laid down by Mr Gurney on the sub- 
ject of human accountableness. This accountable - 
ness may be regarded in relation to two points, — 
knowledge and obedience; and these correspond to 
their respective objects, the former to truth, the lat- 
ter to duty. — In order to accountableness, in the 
form of culpability, for the want of the knowledge 
of truth, two things are self-evidently necessary ; 
sufficient means of discovery, and sufficient capacity 
of understanding. To these, indeed, in some cases, 
a third might be added, unless it be regarded as 
included in the first — sufficient evidence. These 
three things clearly exhaust all that is requisite to 
constitute a ground of responsibility, — means, capa- 
city, and evidence. I have mentioned the third dis- 
tinctly from the first, merely because the two seem 
to be so distinguished by our Lord, when he says of 
the Jew r s, — " If I had not come and spoken to them, 
they had not had sin :" — " If I had not done among 
them the works which no other man did, they had 
not had sin :' the former sentence relating to infor- 
mation, the latter to evidence. — To speak as if, in any 
case, the actual possession of knowledge were neces- 
sary to accountableness for the absence of it, is obvi- 
ously to speak in terms of self-contradiction. If, in 
any case, the knowledge to be attained requires, in 
order to its attainment, the previous knowledge of 
something else, then the possession of this previous 



128 

knowledge must be reckoned as a part of the first 
particular — sufficient means. But nothing can be 
more self-evident than that the possession of know- 
ledge can in no wise be necessary to accountableness 
for the absence of itself ! How far Mr Gurney does 
not lay himself open to the charge of maintaining 
something very like this self-contradictory proposi- 
tion, may by and by appear. 

With regard to responsibility in the department of 
moral duty, — there must be a law, and there must 
be the means of knowing that law. The responsi- 
bility of the Gentiles, or heathen, therefore, implies 
their having a law ; for " where no law is, there is 
no transgression." If from their not having the 
ivritten law, it followed that they had no law, it would 
have followed also, that they had no responsibility. 
But they have a law, — the law of nature and of con- 
science ; — a law, of whose dictates the clearness and 
fulness have, by moral causes existing in the depra- 
vity of man's fallen nature, been very sadly impaired. 
For this deficiency, as springing from such causes, he 
is accountable and culpable ; and, the deficiency it- 
self thus involving blame, it does not, in any degree, 
diminish his responsibility. — Neither in regard to the 
knowledge of God himself, nor in regard to the know- 
ledge of God's will, is there any thing farther neces- 
sary to constitute men " without excuse" for their 
ignorance and for all its results, than the three things 



129 

mentioned, — sufficient mea?is } sufficient capacity ', and 
sufficient evidence. 

It appears to me — (if I am wrong, it will be from 
misunderstanding, not misrepresentation) — that Mr 
Gurney reasons incorrectly, when, besides his two 
particulars, (under the former of which he evidently 
includes my third) — the means and the capacity of 
knowledge, he speaks of something more, as required 
in the ground of accountableness, — namely, a certain 
measure of knowledge itself actually and directly 
imparted. Thus he writes — pages 49, 50 : — " It is 
" evident that the ungodliness of the Gentiles is 
" here condemned" (that is in Rom. i. 18 — 23) " on 
" the ground that some knowledge of divine truth 
" was bestowed upon them. Not only were they 
" furnished with a visible evidence, in the outward 
" creation, of the eternal power and godhead of Je* 
" hovah, but ' that which may be known of God was 
" manifest in them.' They were not left without 
" some sense of his holiness, and of their responsi- 
" bility to him, as the righteous governor of the 
" world. Thus it appears, that their guilt consisted 
" in restraining the truth by their unrighteousness. 
" Graciously provided as they were, not only with 
" outward proofs of the omnipotence of God, but 
" with a measure of light respecting his moral gov- 
" ernment, they nevertheless followed the corrupt 
" desires and devices of their own hearts. They held 



130 

" the truth in bondage, not yielding to its influence, 
" so that it was suppressed in their hearts, and did 
"not rise into dominion." — In the former part of 
this passage, he distinguishes between the knowledge 
of God, in what are called his natural perfections, 
derived from the external indications of these perfec- 
tions in the works of creation, — and the knowledge 
of God in his relation to men as their moral Gov- 
ernor, which, according to him, is more directly 
" shown unto them," and " manifest in them," — not 
deduced, but imparted. Had he meant by this no 
more than that such knowledge originated in the dic- 
tates of natural conscience, suggesting and maintain- 
ing in the mind the sense of responsibility to a moral 
Governor, there had been little, if any thing, pecu- 
liar or objectionable. But this " inward universal 
light" — on which, much more than on the inferential 
knowledge of God from his works, he conceives the 
apostle's argument respecting accountableness to rest, 
as " on a far stronger and wider basis," — he does not 
consider as natural, but as a work of the Spirit of 
God ; and a work of the Spirit, in virtue of the me- 
diation of Jesus Christ. It is to this view of the 
case that I have to beg your special attention. 

The true state of things in regard to man's know- 
ledge of God and of his law, appears to be this. The 
knowledge of both was originally possessed. The 
knowledge of both ought alike to have been retained. 



131 

The knowledge of both was to a great extent per- 
verted and lost. And the causes of the perversion 
and loss were, in regard to both, the same. They 
were moral causes. When the apostle says " They 
did not like to retain God in their knowledge," he 
states a principle which is quite as applicable to 
the law of God, as to God himself, — to his will, as 
to his character. We cannot surely marvel, that 
the two should be found in the same predicament. 
There is no more reason to wonder at the per- 
version of the law, than at the perversion of the 
truth. It was the will of God that was chiefly ob- 
noxious to the dislike of human depravity. Could his 
nature have been separated from his will ; could his 
will have been different from his nature ; could his 
will have tolerated evil, while his nature continued 
holy; could his nature thus have been to man a mere 
subject of abstract speculation, which did not, in any 
way, interfere with the gratification of his own evil 
inclinations : — we could then, without difficulty, have 
formed the conception of his will being perverted 
into accommodation to the propensities of the human 
heart, while conceptions sufficiently correct continued 
to be entertained of his nature. But such a suppo- 
sition manifestly involves the very grossest absurdity 
and contradiction. God's nature and God's will are 
correlates ; the latter having a necessary correspond- 
ence to the former ; — so that to " retain God in their 



132 

knowledge" was to retain the opposite of all the un- 
holy dispositions of their own hearts, the peremptory 
and uncompromising condemnation of all evil. This 
is the cause to which, in a manner the farthest pos- 
sible from flattering to man's moral dignity, the phi- 
losophy of the Bible traces the loss of the knowledge 
of God. And in these circumstances, it cannot be, 
that the direct bestowment of new information, while 
the original and permanent means of knowledge are 
wilfully resisted, should be necessary to constitute a 
reasonable ground of responsibility. This would be 
to make the very perversity of man destructive of 
his accountableness ; nay, to make God accountable 
to man, and lay the Creator under an obligation of 
justice to undo the effects of the creature's wilful and 
froward wickedness. 

I should have little objection to adopt the state- 
ment in page 52 : — " Hence it appears, that, accord- 
" ing to the views of this inspired writer" (Paul, in 
his epistle to the Romans), " the sinfulness of men 
" and the knowledge of the divine law are absolutely 
" co-extensive ; and, since all men are sinners, it in- 
" evitably follows that all men have some knowledge 
"of the law:"— only I should resist the conclusion, 
that any knowledge, either of God or of his law, be- 
yond that which man has naturally the means of 
acquiring, is necessary, to constitute a ground for his 
moral responsibility. If he does not know, he ought 



133 

to know ; and his ignorance of what he ought to 
know can never absolve him from his accountable- 
ness ; his ignorance being the result of his dislike to 
knowledge, and his dislike to knowledge of his fond- 
ness for evil, on the free indulgence of which the 
knowledge was an irksome restraint. But the know- 
ledge of which Mr Gurney speaks is a knowledge 
which comes from another source than nature, — be- 
ing a universal result to mankind of the mediation of 
Jesus Christ, — and imparted by a universal influence 
of the Holy Spirit. This is the essential principle 
of his theory, and common to him with other Qua- 
kers. The consequences we shall see immediately. 

The distinction made by Mr G. between the " uni- 
versal light'' and conscience, — the former meaning the 
knowledge of the law or " righteous rule," and the 
latter the exercise of a judicial function in bringing 
words and actions to the test of that rule, and giving 
sentence upon them, — I shall notice more particularly 
in a little. Meanwhile it may be observed, that, 
although no one will question the position that " the 
" law is not perceived, and that conscience does not 
u operate, when the intellect is not developed ;" that 
••' our moral faculties are bestowed upon us as rational 
" beings ; and that wherever reason is dormant, they 
"will of necessity be dormant also;" — yet there 
appears to be an extraordinary incorrectness, in 
classing together, as exemplifications of the position, 
M 



134 

" infants, idiots, and some of the wildest tribes of 
i '- uncultivated men." Surely there should be a dis- 
crimination here. The two former of these are not 
subjects of moral accountableness; for, even although 
the idiocy of the second may have been induced by 
causes involving a large portion of moral delinquency, 
for which a fearful account may justly be exacted; 
yet we cannot but conceive the cessation of account- 
ableness to be synchronous with the cessation of in- 
tellect, — irresponsibility with irrationality. But when 
the Apostle Paul, in speaking of the heathen, says 
" they are without excuse," he makes no distinctions 
between cultivated and uncultivated men. He classes 
under one description and one condemnation, (though 
no doubt, as in the case of individuals, admitting of 
various degrees,) all the tribes of the Gentile world. 
— Mr Gurney, after classing with infants and idiots, 
as coming " to a considerable extent" under the 
same category with them, " some of the wildest tribes 
of uncultivated men," proceeds to add : " But no 
" sooner do we rise a little higher in the scale of rea- 
" son, than the moral faculties begin to display them- 
" selves." — Now it would be a problem of no little 
interest, but certainly of no less difficulty, to deter- 
mine at what point, in the ascending scale of the 
development of reason, moral responsibility com- 
mences ; — what tribes of mankind come within the 
pale of accountableness, and what tribes have the — 



135 

privilege shall I call it ? — of being beyond it. With- 
out doubt, " the Judge of all the earth will do right," 
forming his judicial estimates of character according 
to unerring views of all the circumstances of situa- 
tion. But there are obvious differences between the 
case of infancy, in which the term of responsibility 
must vary according to the earliness or the lateness of 
mental development in individuals, and in tribes and 
nations of men, whose brutal debasement, consisting 
in the unresisted sway of their sensual appetites and 
lusts, has had its origin in moral causes, and displays 
itself in effects such as are in sad harmony with the 
general description of heathenism by the pen of the 
inspired author of the epistle to the Romans. How 
far the principle we have hinted at in regard to those 
who have been rendered fatuous by the influence of 
licentious indulgence, may be applied to such tribes 
as have sunk, by the operation of similar causes, into 
a state of intellectual brutality, must be left to infinite 
wisdom and justice to determine. It is not with such 
questions I have at present to do. It is with the 
bearing of such views as Mr Gurney thus advances 
upon his own doctrine of the " universal light." If 
there be a point in " the scale of reason," amongst 
the tribes of the human family, at which " the moral 
faculties begin to display themselves ;" then, in regard 
to those who are below that point, what has become 
of this light, — this universal inward light? Accord- 
M 2 



136 

ing to Mr G. this ligbt is the ground of accountable- 
ness. If, therefore, the light be universal, so must 
the accountableness be universal. And remember, 
it is not a general, but an individual universality 
which Mr Gurney, and other Friends in common 
with him, maintain. The light " lighteth every man 
that cometh into the world." " Every man that 
cometh into the world," then, being a possessor of 
this light, is, as such, responsible ; — and whatever 
degree of intellectual development Mr G. may con- 
ceive to be necessary to moral accountableness, must, 
as a matter of course, to render his theory consistent 
with itself, be included in this light; else those un- 
cultivated tribes in whom the moral faculties have 
not " begun to display themselves," will be in the 
self-contradictory predicament of accountable and not 
accountable. — The force of these remarks will be 
more apparent immediately, when we notice Mr 
Gurney's theory of the origin, or procuring cause, of 
the universal light. 

I have already adverted to the distinction made by 
Mr Gurney between the moral light and conscience. 
He thus expresses it : — " It is a remarkable proof of 
" the inaccuracy of our moral philosophers, that, 
" while they so generally admit the universality of 
u this moral light, they confound it, in terms, with 
" the faculty of conscience : — whereas it is evident, 
" that the two things are no more identical, than is 



137 

" the law of the land with the judge on the bench 
" who administers it." Page 56. — He goes on to 
show, in a way which I am not disposed to contro- 
vert, that the perverting influence of the fall has 
affected, not the law, but the judge, — not the light, 
but conscience ; and he briefly, but clearly and for- 
cibly, states the different modes and degrees in which 
the perverting influence appears. — Now, suppose we 
grant Mr G. the correctness of his distinction between 
conscience and the law ; yet, although they are not 
identical, he will not deny them, as subsisting together 
in the human bosom, to be correlates, and propor- 
tionals to each other. There can be no judge where 
there is no law. There can, in like manner, be no 
conscience, where there is no " moral light," or 
knowledge of the law. " The law is the light"'- — says 
Mr Gurney elsewhere, and the metaphor is in excel- 
lent taste, — " the law is the light ; the conscience is 
the eye" Now the light is as necessary to vision as 
the eye, and the eye as necessary as the light Vision 
requires both ; and the measure of vision is in pro- 
portion to the soundness of the eye and the clearness 
of the light. Does it not, then, follow, that beneath 
the point at which " the moral faculties begin to de- 
velop themselves," there can be no conscience ? It 
is not a satisfactory answer to this, to say there is 
" the germ of conscience." The question relates to 
accountableness. The existence of the germ of con- 
M 3 



138 

science in infants and idiots does not constitute them 
accountable moral agents : — and if, in such " uncul- 
tivated tribes" there exists only the latent germ of 
conscience, while, as a moral faculty, it has not be- 
gun to develop itself; then there can be no more 
than the germ too of the moral light, or knowledge 
of God's law. For the law without the judge would 
be as unavailing as the judge without the law ; the 
light without conscience, as conscience without the 
light. What would the mere knowledge of the law 
be, without conscience " accusing or excusing?" 
We cannot fancy the one without the other. Where 
the one exists only in its undeveloped germ, so must 
the other also. And where there is no more than 
the germ of conscience, and the germ of law, there 
can be no more than the germ of accountableness ; 
that is, no more real moral responsibility than in in- 
fants and idiots. 

But, as I have said, in order to our seeing clearly 
the objectionableness of Mr Gurney's theory, we 
must attend more especially to the source or origin 
of the " universal light." This is explicitly and 
luminously stated in the following paragraph : — 
" The reality and universality of the law, or, in other 
" words, of the light, being allowed, I would ask, 
" What is it, and whence does it come ? Is it, as 
" Lord Bacon imagines, ' a sparkle of the purity of 
" man's first estate ?' — or is it a work of the Spirit 



139 

" — an especial gift, bestowed on the fallen children 
" of Adam, ' through the redemption that is in Christ 
" Jesus ?' I am persuaded, that the principal reason 
" why Bishop Butler, and other Christian philoso- 
" phers, have ascribed this light to our own nature 
" is, that they have confounded it with conscience ; 
C£ which must, of course, be regarded as one of our 
" natural faculties. Distinguish the law from the 
u conscience — the pure infallible guide from the fal- 
11 lible and often perverted judge — and we at once 
" perceive, that an enlightening principle, which va- 
" ries in degree indeed, but never in character, — un- 
" changeably holy, heavenly, divine — without any 
" mixture of error or taint of sin — cannot possibly 
" be inherent by nature in the dark and corrupt mind 
" of man. On the broadest scriptural principles, we 
" must trace it immediately to God — to the Holy 
u Spirit as the author of true moral illumination — to 
" the Son as the Mediator through whom all spirit- 
" ual blessings flow — to the Father as the only spring 
" of every good and perfect gift. Between the de- 
M claration of Paul that Christ gave himself a ' ran- 
" som for all,' and that of John, that he c lighteth 
" every man that cometh into the world, 1 there is 
'•' surely a most satisfactory and delightful accord- 
" ance." Pages 58, 59. 

There is, in such a statement, in as far as it traces 
all moral light, and all the benefits resulting from it, 



HO 

to the mediation of Christ, something so congenial to 
the grateful feelings of the Christian — that it may 
seem like an attempt to reduce the amount of obli- 
gation under which mankind lie to the divine Medi- 
ator, if we presume to touch it. But to me there 
appear in it several great and glaring fallacies, to the 
brief exposure of which I solicit the candid attention 
of Mr Gurney's own enlightened mind : and, at the 
same time, the candid attention of you all ; for the 
ground taken by Mr Gurney is that of the Friends in 
general, — an integral part of their system. The light 
is represented by Barclay, as " not less universal than 
" the seed of sin, being the purchase of his death who 
" < tasted death for every man.' " 

1. In the first place, then ; — with regard to those 
" tribes of uncultivated men," already more than 
once adverted to, what is this light? — When we find 
it so distinctly, and in terms so elevated as those just 
cited from Mr Gurney, represented as one of the 
benefits of Christ's mediation ; — and as a benefit 
bestowed on every individual man, " lighting every 
man that cometh into the world;" — is it very hon- 
ourable to the efficiency of the divine Redeemer's 
mediation, that, in regard to multitudes of men born 
into the world, and individually subjects of its illu- 
mination, this light should be found in fact, agreeably 
to Mr Gurney's description, leaving the intellect 
undeveloped, — the reason dark, — the moral faculties, 



141 

in consequence, dormant, — and the conscience, if it 
can be said to exist at all, existing only in its germ f 
— It is an unsatisfactory reply to such questions, 
which is given indirectly in the closing sentence of 
the paragraph referred to — " With respect to all such 
" persons, it may be emphatically said, that 6 the 
" light shineth in darkness, and that the darkness com- 
" prehendeth it notJ n — For, observe of what descrip- 
tion of light these words were originally used. It 
was not an inward but an outward light. It was 
Christ himself. He was the true light. He says of 
himself, " I am come a light into the world." If 
this light " ligliteth every man that cometh into the 
world," then the inward light comes from the out- 
ward. It is not the inward light that is repre- 
sented by the Evangelist as shining in darkness; it is 
the Light from which the inward light is supposed 
to be derived. But it is of the inward light itself 
that Mr Gurney speaks. We can readily conceive 
how a light extraneous to human minds should shine 
amidst the darkness of those minds, and not be ap- 
prehended by them. But in what manner an inter- 
nal light, — a light in the mind itself, — imparted there 
by immediate divine illumination, and imparted uni- 
versally, to each individual man, — " not inherent by 
" nature in man's dark and corrupt mind," but to be 
" traced immediately to God, — to the Holy Spirit as 
" the author of all true moral illumination — to the Son 



142 

" as the mediator through whom all spiritual blessings 
" flow — to the Father, as the only spring and origin of 
" every good and perfect gift ;" — how such a light — 
" unchangeable, holy, heavenly, divine," — should sub- 
sist in the mind, while yet the mind itself remains in 
a state of both intellectual and moral darkness, nei- 
ther reason nor conscience developed, but the rational 
and moral powers alike dormant ! — this is a theorem 
of mysticism, of which it is not for me to attempt the 
solution. — It is vain to say, that every man has this 
light " for a time," that time being, to each, the day 
of his salvation ; for, apart from all abstract reason- 
ing, where, among the " uncultivated tribes" of 
whom we are at present speaking, is there, in point 
of fact, to be found the remotest appearance of cor- 
respondence between this and reality, — the slightest 
indications, in the case of each individual, of such 
temporary possession and subsequent loss, — of a pe- 
riod of enlightenment succeeded by self-induced 
darkness? Were this at all apparent, there might 
be some reason in the solution. But Mr G. himself 
speaks of these tribes as the exemplar of a particular 
state or stage of society, in which the ignorance is 
universal and hereditary, passing down from genera- 
tion to generation, and reigning over all, from child- 
hood to age, with a death-like uniformity ; — a dark- 
ness in which, even according to his own representa- 
tion, the light does not shine. 



143 

2. In regard to the next, the superior class, in 
whom " the moral faculties have begun to display 
themselves," — that is, with regard to the heathen 
world at large, the hypothesis makes the inward 
light, as imparted by the Spirit, in virtue of the 
mediation of Christ, the basis of accountableness. — 
It is manifest, that there can be no accountableness 
without light. The highest authority has settled this: 
— " if ye were blind, ye should have no sin;' And 
it might, indeed, be assumed as a first truth, — a truth 
of self-evident certainty. In order, then, to account- 
ableness being universal, the light that is necessary 
to it must be universal. And, according to the hy- 
pothesis before us, this light is not conscience, — is 
not the light of nature; it is direct spiritual illumi- 
nation from God, on the ground of the mediation of 
his Son. It clearly follows, that the very account- 
ableness of men arises from the mediation of Christ, 
inasmuch as it arises from the possession of a light 
imparted on the ground of this mediation. — Now, this 
is, in the strict, literal, etymological sense of the term, 
preposterous. It is first last, and last first. We are 
accustomed, on the surest grounds, to regard the 
mediation of Christ, as occasioned and rendered 
necessary by the sinfulness and guilt of men ; as de- 
signed to provide deliverance for them from this state 
of sin and condemnation, — the pardon of their guilt, 
and the renovation of their hearts. But according 



144 

to this most extraordinary theory, it is Christ's me- 
diation that places men in circumstances of responsi- 
bility, — procuring for them the light that is neces- 
sary to constitute them responsible. So that, since 
there can be no guilt where there is no responsibility. 
the very mediation which by the Scriptures is repre- 
sented as the divine means of saving men from guilt, 
is in truth the origin of the very guilt from which it 
is appointed to save ; — and, since the universality 
claimed for the inward light includes all generations 
as well as all countries, thus it has been from the 
beginning ! If there be any fallacy in this conclu- 
sion, I do not perceive it. There must be light be- 
fore there can be accountableness ; there must be 
accountableness, before there can be guilt ; there 
must be guilt before there can be mediation. But, 
according to this theory, the last is first. The medi- 
ation procures the light ; founds the responsibility ; 
gives origin to the guilt ; and then saves from it ! 

3. Even on the supposition that these anomalies 
could be harmonized, it is "passing strange" to 
identify this light, — the light which consists in the 
knowledge of the law or " righteous rule" of duty, 
with Christ himself. It is of Christ himself that the 
evangelist John says — " That was the true light that 
lighteth every man. that cometh into the world." 
Now, whatever be the meaning of the words (an 
inquiry which may come before us by and by), 



& 



145 

whatever, I say, be their meaning in application to 
Christ himself, there is a previous question, whether 
Christ and the inward light, the moral light, the 
universal light, for which Mr Gurney contends, be 
the same thing. — That the Friends in general, in the 
entire strain of their phraseology, speak of them as 
if they were, is a matter of fact, respecting which 
there can be no doubt. The hostility of their sys- 
tem to all that is merely external (which may be re- 
garded as its leading characteristic) naturally tends to 
this. Let me not be misunderstood. Opposition to 
mere externality in all that relates to religious ser- 
vice, is right. " God is a Spirit; and they that wor- 
ship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth :" 
— and as the requisition of spiritual worship is not 
here founded on any peculiarity of a particular dis- 
pensation, but on the very nature and essence of 
Deity, it must always have been true, whatever might 
be the external forms under which he ordained his 
worship to be performed, that spirituality was neces- 
sary to his having any complacency in its acts or 
utterances. But hostility to what is external is car- 
ried to a wild extreme, when not only does it set 
aside outward institutions as means of promoting 
what is inward, but identifies outward existences with 
inward principles. The Friends speak of the Christ 
within, in a manner that leads the mind away from 
the Christ without. If by the " Christ within" no- 



146 

thing more were meant, than the Christ without 
believed on in the mind, and trusted and loved in the 
heart, it were well. This is clearly the import of 
any similar phrases in the New Testament. When 
Paul says to the Colossians — " Which is Christ in 
you the hope of glory," what more does he mean, 
than that the Redeemer, who had died for their sins, 
was the object of their faith and love ? How else 
was it possible for him to be in them ? The terms 
are explained (if indeed they can be said to need 
explanation) when the same apostle mentions it as 
one of his petitions for the Ephesian believers, " that 
Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith." For 
what can this mean, but that Christ, as the object of 
their faith, should be the object of their fervent and 
abiding love ? — just as, to express the strength of his 
own affection for his fellow-christians, he says to 
them — " I have you in my heart ;" " ye are in our 
hearts, to die and to live with you." Phil. i. 7. 2 
Cor. vii. 3. — But is this the sense in which the 
Friends are wont to speak of the Christ within ? — A 
more general reply to this question I reserve for an- 
other letter. At present I have to do with the sen- 
timents and language exclusively of Joseph John 
Gurney ; and shall not, therefore, by quoting from 
others, even seem to make him responsible for their 
views. He has, to no inconsiderable extent, modi- 
fied the phraseology of Quakerism ; and the modifi- 



147 

cation of its phraseology is the consequence of a 
modification of its principles. Yet what, on the pre- 
sent subject, is his own language ? — " In a former 
" chapter, I have called the attention of the reader 
" to the doctrine, that a measure of the Spirit of the 
" Son of God is bestowed upon all mankind ; and I 
" have endeavoured to show it to be in reference to 
" his spiritual appearance in the hearts of his creatures, 
" that Christ is styled the ' true light, which lighteth 
" every man that cometh into the world.' " Pages 76, 
77. It is evident, that, in this phraseology, Christ's 
" spiritual appearance in the hearts of his creatures" 
corresponds to the " Christ within" in the ordinary 
nomenclature of Quakerism. Now what is this 
" spiritual appearance in the hearts of his creatures," 
in the case of those who have never heard of him ? 
In giving his exposition of John i. 9. to which we 
may hereafter advert, Mr Gurney, after explaining 
verse 4. "In him was life, and the life was the light 
of men," as referring to " the Word" previously to 
his being " made flesh," and as meaning — " that the 
" Son, or Word, of God, or the Messiah, in his ori- 
" ginal and divine character, was the giver of eternal 
" life, and the spiritual quickener and illuminator of 
" the children of men," subjoins, in a distinct para- 
graph — pages 38, 39. " Since such appears to be 
" the true meaning of verse 4. we cannot reasonably 
" hesitate in our interpretation of verse 9. In the 
n2 



148 

" former, the light is said to be in or by the Word ; 
" in the latter, according to a very usual figure of 
" speech, the Word, being the source of the light, is 
" himself denominated ' Light/ The light, in either 
" case, must be of the same character ; and, if there 
" be any correctness in the view we have now taken 
" of the whole passage, it can be no other than the 
" light of the Spirit of the Son of God, Hence, 
" therefore, I conclude, on the authority of the apos- 
" tie John, that a measure of the light of the Spirit 
" of the Son of God ' lighteth every man that cometh 
" into the world. 9 " 

I presume Mr Gurney will readily admit that hav- 
ing "a measure of the light of the Spirit" is equiva- 
lent to having a measure of the Spirit itself, — the 
Spirit imparting the light. Now, in Scripture phra- 
seology, having the Spirit of Christ, and having 
Christ, — having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, 
and having Christ dwelling in us, are expressions 
significant of the same privilege, and are employed 
interchangeably : — " But ye are not in the flesh but 
in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in 
you : now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, 
he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body- 
is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because 
of righteousness : and if the Spirit of Him that raised 
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised 
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mor- 



149 

tal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." It will 
follow, that to speak of the heathen as having the 
Spirit of Christ in them is the same as to speak of 
their having Christ in them. And this brings Mr 
Gurney's phraseology into a near approximation to 
the current language of the Quaker body. There is 
in it a great deal more of moderation, rationality, and 
consistency, than in the views respecting the inward 
light, promulgated by the more primitive, but, till 
now, standard writers of that body ; and incompa- 
rably more than in the crude, undiscriminating, and 
incomprehensible style of writing and talking on this 
subject, prevalent amongst every-day Friends. Mean- 
time observe, to what, according to Mr Gurney, this 
" light of the Spirit" amounts. When presenting 
what he conceives to be special instances of extraor- 
dinary light among the heathen, he says — pages 61, 
62 — " These may be regarded as rare instances; but 
" they are far from being solitary ones. They may 
" at least serve the purpose of showing the nature 
" and origin of that law by which the natural con- 
" sciences of men are illuminated, and by which they 
" may be rectified. It appears to be a doctrine truly 
" consistent with the scope and tenor of Scripture, 
" and with the breadth of that foundation which is 
" laid in Zion, — even the foundation of Jesus Christ 
" and him crucified, that as every man born into the 
" world receives a measure of moral light, so every 
n3 



150 

" man born into the world has his day of spiritual 
" visitation." — The light, then, for which Mr Gurney 
contends, is simply " the law by which the conscience 
" is illuminated," " moral light," — elsewhere denomi- 
nated by him " a manifestation of the divine law, 
accompanied with a portion of quickening and puri- 
fying power" — page 40, and in former editions of the 
same work, in terms for which these have been sub- 
stituted, " a moral sense of right and wrong, accom- 
panied with a portion of quickening and redeeming 
power." 

Now, although I am sensible, that, were I to quote 
from others, I might find ground on which my ob- 
jections would appear in much greater force, yet I 
keep to Mr Gurney. 

Be it remembered, then, in the first place, that the 
light for which Mr G. contends, as possessed, in a 
measure by " every man that cometh into the world/ 
is not, in any degree, natural. It exists not in any 
man by nature ; and is not by nature attainable. It 
is imparted, in each individual man, by the imme- 
diate illumination of the Spirit of God — Two ques- 
tions, then, here suggest themselves. First, is it not 
somewhat strange, to admit that by nature we have 
conscience, while we have not, by nature, any por- 
tion of the knowledge by which alone, it is granted, 
conscience can be of any use ? — a " natural faculty" 
altogether unaccompanied by any of the means of its 



151 

exercise ! — an eye by nature, but no light by nature ! 
Is this consistent ? Is it reasonable ? Is there any 
thing else analogous to it in the works of God, and 
especially amongst the endowments of his rational 
creatures ? If by the fall we had lost entirely that 
knowledge by which alone conscience can operate, I 
see not, for my own part, how we could have re- 
tained the faculty ; — any more than w T e could have 
had even the least conception of what an eye is, if 
the moment that sin entered, light had disappeared. 
— Why suppose the faculty retained, and the means 
of its exercise lost ? — the eye kept, and the light 
gone ? If we have the one by nature, why not tlit 
other ? 

" Although the knowledge of this holy law," says 
Mr Gurney, " is bestowed upon us as rational crea- 
" tures, it is not a matter of reason ; it is instinctive 
" — the immediate gift of God. The law shines in 
" the soul by its own uncreated light, and bears its 
" own evidence. Like the axioms in mathematics, 
" or the first truths in natural philosophy, it neither 
" requires proof nor admits of it ; it consists of in- 
" tuitive and unchanging principles." Page 54. I 
am not about to enter here into the metaphysics of 
this curious and somewhat difficult question, as to 
the origin of our notions of right and wrong, and 
moral obligation. What I am now at a loss about 
is, the consistency of affirming any thing to be 



152 

" instinctive ,, and " intuitive," and yet not natural, 
but requiring, in order to the possession of it, the 
immediate illumination of the Spirit of God ; the 
consistency of affirming that such immediate illumi- 
nation is necessary to the knowledge of God's law, 
and, at the same time, that that law " shines in the 
soul by its own uncreated light ;" of affirming any 
of our instinctive and intuitive principles to be super- 
naturally bestowed upon us, in virtue of the media- 
tion of Jesus Christ, — and what is self-evident as 
"the axioms in mathematics," to need more than 
nature's powers to discover and discern it. The an- 
cient and modern philosophers, whom Mr Gurney 
quotes in support of his positions, had nothing in 
their minds, when they spoke of the instinctive and 
intuitive character of our notions of right and wrong, 
beyond the light of nature^ — a light which, on the 
present subject, Mr Gurney pronounces to be dark- 
ness. Were it worth while to analyse the sentences 
he quotes, we should find them all against him. The 
very first of those philosophers, Dr Reid, says — 
" The first principles of morals are immediate die- 
" tates of the moral faculty, ," Now the moral faculty, 
in Dr Reid's nomenclature, is conscience. But, ac- 
cording to Mr Gurney, conscience, though admitted 
to be a natural faculty, no more dictates moral prin- 
ciples, than the eye produces the light by which it 
sees, or than the judge enacts the law by which he 



153 

decides. When Dr Reid further says — " The Su- 
" preme Being has given us this light within to direct 
" our moral conduct. It is the candle of the Lord, 
" set up within us to guide our steps ;" — he still 
means conscience : — but in Mr Gurney's theory- 
conscience is not the candle, but the eye that sees 
by means of it. The image, as used by Dr Reid, is 
self-consistent ; every one understanding the " can- 
" die set up within us to guide our steps/' as com- 
prehending the joint existence of light and an eye to 
use it. But the natural conscience of Mr G. is the 
anomaly of an eye without light. 

When Mr Gurney pronounces it impossible that 
the light for which he pleads should be " inherent 
by Jiature in the dark and corrupt mind of man," 
a second question occurs : — does he mean by the 
light any thing more than simple knowledge ? This, 
it is evident, is all that is requisite, in order to 
the operation of conscience. And it is equally 
evident, that such knowledge may exist in any 
mind, however morally corrupt and dark. A law 
may be known, and yet hated; perfectly known and 
perfectly hated. If, on the contrary, he means by 
the light any right disposition of heart towards the 
law, — the divine law, in its divine spirituality, — then. 
I grant him his position that it belongs not to man's 
fallen nature, but must be the product of God's en- 
lightening and sanctifying Spirit. That he does in- 



154 

elude something of this kind appears from his words 
— " a manifestation of the divine law, accompanied 
" with a portion of quickening and purifying power :" 
Has every man, then, who is born into the world, a 
portion of the quickening and purifying power of the 
Holy Spirit? If so, it will follow, that, among all 
the tribes of mankind, we are not in possession of 
any fair specimen of the powers of unassisted nature, 
in regard to the discovery of God and duty, and the 
influence of what is thus discovered ; — that, forming 
a judgment from the aggregate facts in the religious 
history of the world, this universal divine communi- 
cation of spiritual light and power, in virtue of the 
Redeemer's mediation, has either been wonderfully 
stinted, or as wonderfully inefficient; and that the 
apostle's argument respecting the ground of the re- 
sponsibility of the Gentiles is founded in a fallacy, — 
inasmuch as, the knowledge of the law not being 
attainable by nature, there can be none who " do by 
nature the things contained in the law :" — for how 
can they do by nature what they cannot know by 
nature ? It cannot, with any propriety of speech, 
be said, that they either know or do such things by 
nature, when they are both known and done by the 
immediate illumination and influence of the Spirit of 
Christ. And, indeed, there is nothing that can more 
satisfactorily evince the untenableness of Mr Gur- 
ney's hypothesis on this subject, than the necessity 



LOO 

to which it reduces him of confounding to such a 
degree things that differ, as to advance the position, 
that " when the apostle makes mention of the Gentiles 
" performing the works of righteousness ' by nature,' 
" he cannot be understood as alluding to nature unas- 
" sisted by divine grace." Page 32, Note. If the apos- 
tle does not allude to " nature unassisted by grace," 
I should say he does not allude to nature at all. 
Nature assisted by grace ceases to be nature. It 
becomes something more, — something s^ernatural ; 
and by combining in itself the very things contrasted, 
it destroys the contrast ; for what are grace and na- 
ture, if they do not mean the assisted and the unas- 
sisted powers of man ? Yet Mr Gurney alleges, that 
" the state of nature is placed in opposition, not to a 
" state of grace, but only to one of outward light and 
" instruction." Now that it is contrasted with a state 
of outward light and instruction, is true ; but that 
the absence of outward light and instruction is all 
that is meant in the phrase " by nature" I cannot 
admit. The supposition of immediate supernatural 
inward light and instruction is surely just as incom- 
patible with the idea of " a state of nature" as that 
of outward light and instruction is. It depends, in- 
deed, on the amount of this direct illumination of the 
Spirit, whether it be not a superior privilege to the 
mere possession of an external revelation. We can 
readily enough conceive of its going so far, as even 



156 

to surpass this in value. At all events, " by nature 1 
cannot reasonably be understood as meaning by grace, 
or, which is the same thing, by nature with super- 
natural aid. Does the same phrase include any 
thing of the kind, when Paul says elsewhere, " We 
were by nature children of wrath, even as others ? " 
His subsequent explanation teaches us the contrary : 
" But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love 
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in 
sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by 
grace ye are saved ;) and hath raised us up together, 
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus." Eph. ii. 4 — 6. Does not the apostle, in 
these words, confine the idea of "grace" and " quick- 
ening" to the dispensation of the gospel ? Does he 
not warrant our considering a state of nature as, in 
his phraseology, the proper contrast to a state of 
grace, and not (as Mr Gurney's hypothesis makes it) 
a state of grace itself? 

It is an admitted rule in philosophy, that we should 
not introduce more causes than are sufficient to ac- 
count for the phenomena. The rule is of equally 
legitimate authority in our investigations of the mo- 
ral condition of intelligent creatures, as in those of 
the physical constitution of the universe. Now, there 
does not to me appear to be any thing in the apostle 
Paul's statement regarding the Gentiles, that requires 
more to account for it than what may fairly be con- 



157 

sidered as belonging to every man by nature ; nothing 
in it which renders it at all necessary to suppose a 
direct and universal operation of the Holy Spirit : — ■ 
and if so, that there is no need for having recourse 
to an interpretation of the phrase "by nature' so 
unnatural as that of Mr Gurney, — in which there is 
so obvious a confounding of nature and grace. I 
cannot but think, that Mr Gurney himself will see the 
propriety of keeping nature and grace distinct, if the 
apostle's representation can be satisfactorily explained 
without confounding them. Now, surely, there is 
no reason for our putting any stronger construction 
on his representation of the Gentiles, as " doing by 
nature the things contained in the law," than is ne- 
cessary to the validity of his conclusions. Nothing, 
then, can be more certain, than that by such terms 
he does not mean that the Gentiles did all the things 
contained in the law ; that they rendered it a com- 
plete obedience, — that they fulfilled it. It were a 
waste of time to prove this. No man in his sound 
mind will question it. And if the terms are capa- 
ble of one restriction, they are equally so of another : 
— it is not at all necessary to the apostle's reasoning 
to interpret them as implying that even of those 
" things contained in the law " which the Gentiles by 
nature do, any are done from such principles, or such 
a state of heart, as to render the doing of them truly 
good and acceptable in the sight of God. To this, 
o 



158 

the true love of God is indispensable ; and to the 
true love of God, the true knowledge of him. It is 
quite enough for the apostle's argument, that, in their 
conduct, in the " witness-bearing" of their " con- 
sciences," and in their "reasonings'' (koy^y^v) on 
morals and jurisprudence, the Gentiles evince a sense 
of right and wrong, — convictions in their minds of 
sin and duty, — with any corresponding approbation 
or disapprobation, self-satisfaction or remorse, when, 
by their neighbours or by themselves, the one or the 
other has been done. " When at any time, any 
" amongst them, in any part of their conduct, pay 
" regard to the claims of humanity and justice, of 
" natural affection and of general benevolence, in 
" opposition to the influence of contrary principles, 
" they make it apparent that, although without the 
" written law, they ' are a law unto themselves, and 
" 'show the work of the law written in their hearts.' 
" There the law of God was originally written ; and 
" although, by the fall, the impression of the divine 
" hand-writing has been mournfully defaced and cor- 
" rupted, yet it has never been entirely obliterated. 
" In regard, indeed, to right dispositions of heart, — 
" to the principles of godliness, — to truly spiritual 
" and holy desires and affections, the obliteration is 
" complete ; no traces of the original characters re- 
" main. But the law itself has not been thoroughly 
" erased from the mind, however entirely the heart 



159 

" may have lost the disposition to keep it. The er- 
" roneousness and debasement of the conceptions of 
" moral good and evil prevalent among the heathen, 
" have arisen from the very same cause to which the 
" apostle traces their ignorance of God himself. The 
" source of their dislike to the only true God was, 
" the opposition of his pure and holy character to 
" the pollutions of their fallen nature. And we need 
" not surely wonder, that the same depravity should 
" have produced, as far as the remaining light and 
" power of reason would admit, the perversion and 
" partial oblivion of that law, which is ' holy and just 
" and good,' — condemning their trespasses, working 
" wrath, and filling them with a ' fearful looking-for 
" of judgment.' By all such voluntary erasement of 
" the law of God from their minds, deep guilt has 
" been contracted. But still, the original impression 
" is not gone."* — The inward workings and outward 
indications of conscience ; — the entire procedure of 
heathen courts of justice ; — the moral writings of 
some of their most eminent philosophers ; — the rea- 
sonings of suspected or accused transgressors, to 
maintain their characters by clearing themselves of 
the imputation of crime, or by excusing and palli- 

* Sermons on Man's Accountableness for his Belief, and the 
Responsibility of the Heathen, pages 53, 54. To this small 
volume the author must refer the reader for a more enlarged 
exposition of his views on this very interesting subject. 

o2 



160 

ating their culpable conduct; — along with various 
other evidences, all concur to prove the existence of 
what has been termed the law of nature. And to 
my own mind it appears abundantly clear, that no- 
thing more than nature is necessary to account for 
all the phenomena ; and that to interpret nature in 
the apostle's reasoning, as meaning nature assisted 
by grace, is to confound things that differ, as well as 
to introduce a cause of which the operation is not at 
all required, 

And this leads me to observe, still farther, that the 
charge of confounding things that differ applies with 
no less force to the identification, in kind though not 
in degree, of the blessing thus bestowed upon the 
heathen with that promised in the new covenant, 
and enjoyed by the spiritual subjects of that cov- 
enant : — " I will put my law in their inward parts, 
and write it in their hearts." " This law of God 
" written in the heart," says Mr Gurney, " can be 
" nothing less than a divine illumination ; and the 
-' larger measures of such illumination are described 
" in the very same terms, as one of the choicest 
" blessings of the Christian dispensation : Jer. xxxi. 
" 33." Page 32, Note. — This is surprising. In the 
passage on which we have been commenting — Rom, 
ii. 14, 15. — the apostle is contrasting the condition 
of the Jews who had the written law, with that of the 
Gentiles who had it not. Now the possession by the 



161 

Jews of the written law was the possession simply of 
the means of knowing the divine will. The possession, 
as the entire context shows, has no reference what- 
ever to the state of the heart, — and implies nothing 
of any right disposition towards that will. If the 
contrast, therefore, be at all fair, what is said of the 
Gentiles must also have a simple reference to the 
means of knowing the divine will possessed by them. 
It must not be considered as inclusive of moral dis- 
position. For to interpret it thus, would introduce 
on the one side of the contrast what has no place in 
the other; it would set it at variance with the entire 
description of the practical character of the Gentile 
world ; and it would, moreover,: — contrary to the 
whole spirit and scope of the apostle's reasoning, — 
assign to the Gentiles a higher privilege than that set 
in contrast with it as bestowed upon the Jews. The 
Jews had the written law, — the law in the Book: — 
but if the Gentiles, who had not that law, had the 
law in the heart, in the same sense in which this 
blessing is promised in the new covenant, although 
not in the same degree, — who will deny that they 
had a privilege of higher value ; inferior means of 
knowledge with a right disposition of heart, being, 
beyond question, more excellent than a superior 
measure of the former without the latter. I proceed 
on the assumption of what Mr Gurney will not dis- 
pute, that the terms of promise in the new covenant 
o 3 



162 

do include disposition as well as knowledge, — or, in 
other words, the "new heart" and " new spirit/' the 
" heart of flesh" that comes in the room of the " stony- 
heart," — which are elsewhere specified as the bless- 
ings of the same covenant. — That the contrast in the 
passage relates to the means of knowledge, is further 
evident from the very object which the apostle has in 
view, which is to establish the principle that respon- 
sibility is according to privilege ; and that, " in the 
day when God shall judge the secrets of men by 
Jesus Christ," the truth of the position he had just 
laid down, — that " there is no respect of persons 
with God," — would be manifested in the fact of the 
judgment being conducted upon that principle:— 
" As many as have sinned without law shall also per- 
ish without law ; and as many as have sinned in the 
law shall be judged by the law." But this can have 
no reference to disposition, or state of heart ; inas- 
much as that forms no part of the standard or rule 
of judgment, but of the character to which the stan- 
dard or rule is to be applied. — When God, in the 
new covenant, the spiritual covenant of the gospel, 
gives the gracious promise, " I will put my laws in 
their minds and in their hearts will I write them," he 
promises what is essentially regeneration ; not only 
a mind to know, but a heart to love, his law, — even 
that law of which the first precept demands supreme 
love to himself. To suppose " every man born into 



163 

the world " a possessor, by the direct influence of the 
Holy Spirit, of this new covenant blessing, is to sup- 
pose " every man born into the world," to the extent 
in which he does possess it, a regenerate or new T man ! 
How far this is in accordance with the very plainest 
representations of Scripture — " judge ye." 

I cannot help thinking, that Mr Gurney ascribes 
to the law, and to the knowledge of the law, effects 
which, according to apostolic statement, it is not fit- 
ted to produce. He says — " The conscience, indeed* 
;t like every other faculty of the human mind, is prone 
" to perversion, and the law written in the heart is 
" given, not only to enlighten but to rectify it." 
Page 33. Now, whence is it, that the conscience is 
"prone to perversion?" It is owing to the state of 
the heart. In order, therefore, to its being " recti- 
fied," that which perverts it must be rectified. If by 
the " law written in the heart," Mr Gurney intends 
such a writing as includes the rectification of the 
heart, or the impartation to it of a right disposition 
towards the law, his position is indeed correct ; but 
then, he is embarrassed by all the difficulties we have 
just been mentioning. And if by the " law written 
in the heart" he means no more than the knowledge 
of the law, then will it not be easy to reconcile his 
position, that it is given to rectify the conscience, 
with the tendency of such knowledge, operating on 
human corruption, as stated by the inspired apostle 



164 

Paul. According to him, it works rebellion, and 
works wrath. — It works rebellion, — the authoritative 
restrictions and prohibitions of the law fretting and 
irritating, and stimulating to resistance, the latent 
principles of corruption. Hence he speaks of " the 
motions of sins which were by the law, working in 
the members" of those who are still " in the flesh," 
" to bring forth fruit unto death ;" and of " sin, tak- 
ing occasion by the commandment, working in him- 
self," when he was yet unregenerate, " all manner of 
concupiscence." — Audit "works wrath;" because 
" by the law is the knowledge of sin :" — so that the 
clearer and fuller the knowledge of the law, the 
clearer and fuller will be the sinner's knowledge and 
consciousness of the amount of his guilt, and the 
more vivid and alarming his apprehensions of the 
coming wrath. To sinners, as all mankind are, the 
law is " the ministration of condemnation." Fear 
and death are its attendants. There is no grace in 
it, and no hope. It can hardly be a privilege to 
know it, unless with that knowledge there comes also 
the knowledge of the way of salvation. And to me 
it appears a very preposterous thing, to represent 
that which " worketh wrath," as, by itself, one of the 
benefits of the Redeemer's mediation ! * 

I should now call your attention, and especially 

* See Note at the end of this Letter. 



165 

that of Mr Gurney himself, to the bearing of the view 
taken by him of the meaning of the apostle's words 
in Rom. ii. on the gospel doctrine of justification. 
This, however, is a subject of such paramount im- 
portance, that I mean to assign to it a distinct letter, 
— perhaps more. — Meanwhile, entreating Mr Gur- 
ney 's forgiveness if, in any point, I have unwittingly 
misrepresented his sentiments, or deduced from them 
any conclusions which are not legitimate, I remain, 
Yours respectfully, 

R. \Y\ 



166 



NOTE referred to towards the close of the preceding Letter. 

The Responsibility of the Heathen is a subject of the deep- 
est interest, — the discussion of it involving that of the great prin- 
ciples of the divine government. I have referred the reader for 
my views of this subject, to a separate publication. From that 
little volume I may here present an extract or two; from which, 
though imperfectly, he may form a judgment of the principles 
maintained in it, and compare them, not merely with his own, 
but with the dictates of the Sacred volume ; our harmony in 
sentiment with each other being, comparatively, of little mo- 
ment, — but our agreement with God being of the last import- 
ance ; that we may not be found either " charging Him fool- 
ishly," or " vindicating his ways" on principles which have not 
the sanction of his word. 

" To come at once to the text of our discourse. I can con- 
ceive to myself nothing plainer : — c As many as have sinned 
without law, shall also perish without law ; and as many as have 
sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law.' " 

" Nor is it in the text only that these principles are recog- 
nised. The spirit of them pervades the whole of the sacred 
volume ; and in many places of it they are affirmed with no less 
explicitness than in the words before us. For example : Luke 
xii. 47, 48. * And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and 
prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be 
beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did com- 
mit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For 
unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required ; 
and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask 
the more.' — John ix. 39 — 41. * And Jesus said, For judgment I 
am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and 
that they which see might be made blind. And some of the 
Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto 
him, Are we blind also ? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, 
ye should have no sin : but now ye say, We see ; therefore your 
sin remaineth. , — John xv. 22 — 24. * If I had not come and 



167 

spoken unto them, they had not had sin : but now they have no 
cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. 
If I had not done among them the works which none other man 
did, they had not had sin : but now have they both seen and 
hated both me and my Father.' — Matth. xi. 20 — 24. ■ Then 
began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works 
were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Cho- 
razin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which 
were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would 
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto 
you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of 
judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art ex- 
alted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell : for if the 
mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in 
Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto 
you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in 
the day of judgment, than for thee.' 

" From these and other passages, we lay it down, without 
hesitation, as the doctrine of Scripture, as it is also the evident 
dictate of reason, — that responsibility is according to privilege, 
— that the punishment of offences by the judgment of a right- 
eous God, will be exactly proportionate to the extent in which 
the means have been enjoyed of the knowledge both of duty and 
of the obligations to its performance." 

" If the Bible condemned men for their ignorance of what 
they never heard of, — for not receiving a revelation which they 
had no opportunity of knowing, — for not obeying a law which 
never was promulgated to them, — for failing to accept a mes- 
sage of mercy which never reached their ears ; — the objection I 
am considering would be more than plausible; it would be valid, 
— it would be insurmountable. It would be far more than diffi- 
cult, — it would be utterly impossible, on any sound principles, 
£ to vindicate the ways of God to men.' The Book that con- 
tained such principles could not come from Him who is i a God 
of truth, and without iniquity.' — But indeed it is not so. The 
representation is an impious slander on the Bible. No such 



168 



principles of unrighteousness are any where to be found in it. 
And I would again put it to the conscience and the candour of 
any infidel, whether a fairer principle can be imagined than that 
which is laid down in the text and in the other passages that 
have been quoted ? In conducting judgment on such a prin- 
ciple, does not the blessed God fully sustain the character which 
the same Book gives of him— 4 Just and right is He ?' Sin he 
hates, and is determined to punish. He has published the de- 
termination. But he has, at the same time, assured us, that he 
will weigh, in an even balance, all extenuating as well as all 
aggravating circumstances, and pronounce his judicial sentences 
accordingly. — And what more than this can any reasonable man 
desire? So far from being a ground of objection and cavil, 
ought not the explicit recognition of such a principle, as the 
rule by which the divine procedure is to be regulated, to recom- 
mend the Book which contains it, as giving just and worthy views 
of * the righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness T " 

" 1 have thus endeavoured to show you the principles, accord- 
ing to which, the Scriptures assure us, the judgments of the Di- 
vine Tribunal are to be conducted. And I wish to impress it 
strongly on your minds, that beyond the ascertaining of princi- 
ples it is not ours to go. We dare not attempt it. If you ask 
me to apply these principles, I am silent, and resolute in silence. 
This is beyond our legitimate province. It would be an arrogant 
and impious assumption of a prerogative exclusively divine. If 
you begin, therefore, to name individuals, and to press me with 
inquiries what is to become of them — I have but one reply: — 
You are going beyond your limits. You are not the judges. 
You know not enough of the cases and the characters, — not 
even of any one case or character, — to fit you for such decision. 
It is enough for you to be assured of the principles of judgment, 
and of the application of these principles being in the hands of 
an omniscient, unerring, independent, and impartial Judge. 
There you must leave all questions as to individuals ' The 
Judge of all the earth will do only that which is right' No 
one, you may surely rest satisfied, shall find any ground of com- 



169 

plaint at the Tribunal of ' the Holy One and the Just.' Is the 
amount of your confidence in God (I again ask you) so very 
small, that you cannot trust him for this ? — that you will not be 
satisfied with the explicit declaration of principles, but will in- 
sist on his disclosing to you the results of their application to 
individual characters, or on his endowing you with omniscience, 
to enable you to make this application yourselves? 

" But a heavy load, I will suppose, after all that has been said, 
still presses upon your minds ; you still urge the anxious in- 
quiry — But may not the Heathen be saved ? Is their salvation, 
icithout the knowledge of revelation, impossible ? Is there no hope 
for them ? 

u I have no wish to dismiss such questions lightly. It would 
>how a want of all becoming sensibility, not to participate in the 
solicitude which they express. In attempting any reply to them, 
I must begin by inquiring, — What do you mean when you ask, 
1 May not the heathen be saved ?' — There is a vagueness in the 
question, of which, possibly, you are not sensible. — When you 
-ay, May not the heathen be saved ? — do you mean to ask whe- 
ther all the heathen may be saved, whatever have been their 
principles, and whatever their character ? I will not suppose 
you can mean this. It would be an insult to your good sense. 
The doctrine that would make salvation independent of present 
principles and present character in the case of the heathen, must 
of necessity, (if those who maintain it would be consistent with 
themselves) make salvation independent of principles and char- 
acter as to all mankind. And with a doctrine such as this, — if 
any shall be found so foolish and so presumptuous as to entertain 
it, — we have at present nothing to do. 

u Again, then, I ask — Do you mean by the question, whether, 
if a heathen can be found, who has thought, and felt, and acted, 
fully up to the light which he has enjoyed, — who has in every 
thing lived agreeably to that light, whatever the measure of it 
may have been, — whether that heathen may be saved ? — then I 
answer, without the hesitation of a moment, Yes — most assur- 
edly. The text clearly implies it. We know that if those who 
had the law kept the law perfectly, then they would have been 

P 



170 

saved by it ; for the Scripture expressly saith, < The man that 
doeth these things shall live by them.' Such persons would have 
been sinless in their circumstances;— and if any one of those who 
are * without law ' were found sinless in his circumstances, he 
could not perish ; for the text lays down the principle, that it is 
only such as have sinned, in whatever circumstances, that shall 
perish. It clearly follows, that if a heathen be found, who has, 
in all respects, lived according to the light he has enjoyed, he 
shall not perish. Point out the man, and we have divine autho- 
rity for pronouncing him safe. The doctrine of the text is, that 
he is to be judged according to his circumstances, — « according 
to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not : ' — in 
the case supposed, he comes up to this test: — he cannot, there- 
fore, be condemned, — he cannot perish. 

" But there is still another question : — Even those who believe 
the gospel are not by the faith of it perfectly freed from sin ; 
they are only delivered from its predominant power, from the 
love and the indulgence of it; so that, with various degrees of 
remaining corruption, prevailing holiness becomes their distin- 
guishing character: — is your meaning, then, whether, if a hea- 
then were to be found, understanding and believing those views 
of God which nature teaches, — humbly and seriously feeling their 
influence, — and living accordingly, — not a life, as in the former 
supposition, of sinless conformity to his principles, but, as in the 
case of the christian believer, a life of such predominant good- 
ness as the lessons which he actually has, the truths which he 
has learned from the volume of nature, are fitted to produce ; — 
whether, if such a man were found, he might not be saved ? — I 
freely answer, I am not prepared to deny that he might. And if 
any shall think these terms, in such a case, unduly cautious and 
measured, — I will go a step further, and say, the spirit of the text 
appears to imply, if its words do not directly express, a principle 
that would warrant our answering this question too in the affirm- 
ative. — Divine instruction is contained, if I may so express my- 
self, in two volumes, — the volume of nature, and the volume of 
revelation. The text expressly declares, — what accords with the 
dictates of reason and with every natural sentiment of justice, — 



171 

that they who are not in possession of the latter are not to be 
judged by it. If, therefore, any one can be found, who learns 
aright what is taught in the only volume he has, and who is rightly 
and habitually, though not perfectly, influenced by what he learns, 
— (for to insist on the perfection of such influence would, as I 
have just before noticed, be to require more than is required in 
the case of the believer of the lessons of the other volume, the 
volume of revelation) — I see not, in such a case, how either the 
spirit or the letter of my text could justify me in affirming his 
condemnation ; — for then, in opposition to what the text so 
plainly teaches us, his sentence would proceed on the ground of 
his not being influenced by what he had no opportunity to know. 

" In granting, however, this general position, I must request 
the special attention of my hearers, to the following observations, 
as its necessary qualifying accompaniments : — 

" In the Jirst place : I repeat, as of particular consequence to 
be borne in mind, I am only laying down principles. With the 
personal application of these principles I have nothing to do. 
That, as I have said, must rest in a higher quarter. — in the hands 
of the only competent Judge. In my present reasonings, all is 
hypothetical, //"such a person is to be found, we may entertain 
good hopes of his future well-being. 

" Secondly : The supposition of such a person's salvation is 
not by any means to the exclusion, in the hypothetical case, of 
either the influences of the Spirit of God, or the virtue of the 
Redeemer s atonement. — With regard to the former; since both 
the volume of nature and the volume of revelation are divine, 
there is surely nothing either inconceivable or incongruous in the 
idea of the Holy Spirit operating on the minds of men by the 
truths contained in the one, as well as by those contained in the 
other. The truths indeed of the former volume are truths which 
are assumed and repeated in the latter, — although the principal 
lessons of the latter are discoveries peculiar to itself, beyond 
those of the former, and far transcending them in interest and 
glory. But still, the Spirit of God may, without the slightest 
inconsistency or disparagement, be conceived to impart his in- 
fluence for giving the right discernment and the proper efficacy 

P 2 



172 

of those lessons that are common to nature and revelation, as well 
as of those which are peculiar to the latter. When the New 
Testament dispensation is distinguished as the ' ministration of 
the Spirit,' — and when such language is used as, ' the Holy 
Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glori- 
fied, 5 — we are not to understand, that there was no Divine influ- 
ence previous to the fulness of time and the clear discoveries of 
the gospel ; but only that, under the gospel, the degreee of that 
influence was to be so extraordinary and unprecedented, as to 
form a distinctive characteristic of the new era. Both the mi- 
raculous power and saving energy of the Spirit were in requisi- 
tion from the beginning, for giving evidence and efficacy to the 
truth of God. But when Christ had finished his work, — when 
he ' ascended on high leading captivity captive, and received 
gifts for men,' the effusion was beyond all example abundant in 
its measure, and glorious in its effects. — On the same principle, 
when we speak of the Spirit operating by the truths of revela- 
tion, it might be meant, not that his operation was exclusively or 
without exception by their instrumentality, but only in a degree 
and with a frequency so transcendently superior, as to be fairly 
and strikingly distinctive and characteristic. The truths taught 
by nature are also taught by revelation : and the question is, 
whether, as taught by nature, that is, by themselves, unconnected 
with the peculiar discoveries of the inspired volume, God has 
ever been pleased to honour them with the accompaniment of 
his Spirit, and so to make them the instrumental means of spir- 
itual benefit to the souls of men. And on this question I would 
by no means venture to affirm any thing with confidence. Whilst 
the supposition involves nothing either impossible or unworthy of 
the Divine Agent, — yet it may be regarded as at least dubious in 
point of fact, whether the Spirit ever does make use of the 
truths taught by the light of nature alone, for renewing hearts, 
and bringing erring men back to God. When the apostle says, 
— < After that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew 
not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save 
them that believe,' his language certainly favours the contrary 
supposition. It seems to intimate, that it was God's design, to 



173 

give a full and fair trial to the unassisted powers of human rea- 
son : and the trial, during the whole period of it, and over all 
the extent of its field, having issued in a total failure, then he 
comes forward with his new instrument, the peculiar discoveries 
of the gospel, the doctrines of the cross. These he accompa- 
nies with his spiritual agency, and proves them to be, though 
foolishness in the eyes of the wise men of this world, ' the 
power of God unto salvation.' — Still, however, on the principles 
above mentioned, this and similar passages might signify not the 
absolute exclusion, but only the very great rarity, of divine influ- 
ence accompanying the truths in the volume of nature. I do 
not think that inspired authority pronounces any unqualified 
decision of the question. 

" With regard again to the atonement of Christ, the question 
comes to be, whether there be any impossibility or contradiction 
in the supposition of its saving virtue extending to any who are 
necessarily ignorant of it ? I hold it as a scriptural principle, in 
regard to our apostate world, that * there is no salvation in any 
other' than the revealed Mediator; and tjiat all consequently 
who are finally saved must owe their salvation to his atonement 
and intercession. The whole countless multitude of the re- 
deemed shall sing one song — ' Salvation to our God who sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!' Personal worthiness, and 
self-salvation, will have no place in the thoughts of any one mind 
in that vast assembly. i Christ will be all, and in all.' But 
the question is, whether the merits of Christ can, in any case, 
extend, in their saving virtue, beyond the actual knowledge of 
him? And in answer to this question, the case of infants imme- 
diately presents itself. We believe the mediation of Christ to 
be available to their salvation, although they are incapable of 
knowing, understanding, and believing the divine testimony. 
There is a close parallelism between their case and that of the 
Heathen ; — the sole difference being, that in the one the ignor- 
ance arises from incapacity, and in the other from situation; and 
these, where the situation is not the result of choice, are, in all 
that affects moral responsibility, evidently on a level. 

" Still, however, let it not be forgotten, all this is hypothetical 

p3 



174 



Of particular facts, or of the salvation of individuals, we can 
affirm nothing. We only say — If — if such persons have existed, 
or do exist. 

" I recur to the general position, that the principle of judgment 
laid down in the text is that of perfect unimpeachable equity, 
and repeat my appeal for this to the understanding and con- 
science of every hearer. If you are satisfied of the rectitude of 
the principle, leave the Heathen (for surely you may do so with 
confidence) in the hands of that Supreme Judge, who has an- 
nounced this as the unalterable law of his procedure, and who, 
in its impartial application, will do none of his creatures wrong. 
Be thankful for the discovery of the principle, and intrust the 
application of it to him. To such confidence he is entitled. It 
is fearful impiety to withhold it." 



LETTER V. 

ON THE GOSPEL DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION, 



Respected Friends, 

The subject with which, in the close of 
my last letter, I proposed to open this, is one, as then 
stated, of paramount importance. All men are sin- 
ners : — that is, they are transgressors of the divine 
law ; for " sin is the transgression of the law," and 
" where no law is, there is no transgression," As 
sinners, or transgressors of the law, all are under the 
law's sentence of condemnation — " Cursed is every 
one that continueth not in all things written in the 
book of the law, to do them :" — " The soul that sin- 
neth, it shall die." In these circumstances, there 
cannot be an inquiry of more momentous interest, 
than the inquiry how sinners may obtain forgiveness, 
and find acceptance with God? — To furnish a satis- 
factory answer to this inquiry is one of the first de- 
signs of the Gospel. Leaving for subsequent consid- 
eration the question, how far the views of Mr Gurney 
respecting the answer w 7 hich the gospel does give to 



176 

it are in harmony with those of other Quaker writers, 
and of Friends in general, it is with his views that I 
have now, in the first instance, to do: — and it is with 
no ordinary satisfaction that I introduce them, as 
being, substantially, so coincident with what I con- 
ceive to be the doctrines of the inspired volume. It 
is with delight, indeed, that I enrich my pages with 
the following brief citations from the midst of much 
more that is equally excellent. 

After quoting portions of that admirable exposition 
of the ceremonial law, the epistle to the Hebrews, he 
says : — " On a " fair examination of these luminous 
" passages, it seems impossible not to confess, on the 
" one hand, that the sacrifices of the law were, in their 
" nature, weak and unprofitable ; and, on the other 
" hand, that in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
" there was a real efficacy for the blotting out of all in- 
" iquity. While, however, we heartily acknowledge 
" this blessed truth, and, under a sense of our own 
" vileness, gratefully avail ourselves of the ' blood of 
u the everlasting covenant' as the only atonement for 
" our sins, we ought to exercise a holy caution, lest 
" our sentiments on this subject should degenerate into 
" unscriptural and merely heathenish notions of expi- 
i( atory sacrifice" * — Admirably does he guard against 
these, and at the same time, vindicate the doctrine of 

* Essays on the Evidences, Doctrines, and practical operation 
of Christianity, pages 414, 415, Essay XI. 









177 

atonement from the false aspersions thrown upon it 
by its Socinian adversaries, as implying the vindic- 
tiveness and implacability of the divine nature — 
" Christians have not unfrequently been accused of 
" assuming, as the foundation of their doctrine of 
" atonement, the natural implacability of God towards 
" man ; and of holding the notion that God was ren- 
" dered placable by the involuntary sufferings of a 
" harmless, unoffending substitute. That such and 
" similar statements of the opinions of Christians are, 
" for the most part, gross misrepresentations, and that 
" no such views have ever been entertained by any 
" reflecting or consistent theologian, I am fully per- 
" suaded. Be that as it may, however, these unques- 
" tionably are not the views of the atonement pre- 
u sented to us in the Bible. There we plainly learn, 
u that the incarnation, humiliation, sufferings, and 
" propitiatory sacrifice, of Christ, were ordained by 
" the Father himself, as the means through which, 
" in his own infinite knowledge and wisdom, he saw 
" fit to provide for the satisfaction of his justice, and 
" at the same time for the pardon and restoration of 
" a lost and sinful race of his creatures. And these 
" eternal counsels were so far from being the effect of 
" any essential implacability in the mind of God, — ■ 
" that the divine attribute to which they are uni- 
" formly ascribed in Scripture, is the very opposite 
" of such a quality. It is placability: it is mercy: it 



178 

a is love. ' God so loved the world that he gave his 
" only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
" should not perish but have everlasting life.' John 
" iii. 16. ' God is love.' ' In this was manifested 
" the love of God toward us, because that God sent 
" his only begotten Son into the world, that we might 
"live through him.' 1 John iv. 8, 9."* — Again: 
" Now, although a crucified Redeemer is thus clearly 
" revealed to us as the appointed channel of the 
" mercies of God to man, such is the perverseness 
" of our hearts that we are naturally prone to reject 
" him, and even to account the ' blood of the cove- 
" nant an unholy thing.' As it was in the days of 
" the Apostle Paul, so it is now — Christ crucified 
" offends the pride of the Jew, and mortifies the false 
" wisdom of the Greek : 1 Cor. i. 23. How many 
" persons are there, whose self-righteousness is far 
" too little broken down to admit of their accepting 
" that divine plan of redemption which involves their 
" own total humiliation, inasmuch as it assumes that 
" they are justly liable to the divine displeasure, ab- 
" solutely devoid of merit, and destitute of all capa- 
" city to be saved, except through the righteousness 
" of another /" j- — And in the following passages, the 
imputation of this righteousness to the believing sin- 
ner, for his justification before God, is maintained 

* Ibid, pages 415, 416. f Ibid, pages 419, 420. 



179 

with unequivocal clearness : — M It is a position very 
" plainly laid down by the apostle Paul, that we are 
"justified by faith in Christ without the deeds ofthelaic, 
" Rom. iii. 28. or in other words (elsewhere adopted 
" by him) that i without works,' righteousness is 
" imputed to the believer in Jesus, Rom. iv. 6, 11. 
" Now, on a comparison of this position with other 
" scriptural declarations, of some of which the apostle 
" is himself the author, it is easy to perceive, that 
" the righteousness imputed to the Christian is no 
" imaginary innocence and virtue, but the righteous- 
" ness of the Lord Jesus Christ himself: for it is 
" Jesus who is described by the prophets as i the 
" Lord our righteousness,' Jer. xxiii. 6. comp. Isa. 
" xlv. 24, 25. Christ Jesus is made unto us, of the 
" Father, righteousness and redemption, 1 Cor. i. 30. 
" ' God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew 
" no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of 
" God in him,' 2 Cor. v. 21."*— And, when he has 
explained wherein the righteousness of Christ con- 
sists, he thus proceeds — and this quotation must suf- 
fice : — " Such was the righteousness of the Lord 
" Jesus Christ; and such is the righteousness, there- 
" fore, which, through faith, is imputed to the Chris- 
" tian. A very slight degree of reflexion on the 
" divine nature and infinite dignity of the Son of 

* Ibid, pages 423, 424. 



180/ 

i - 

* c God, as well as on the perfection of his human 
" character, may serve to convince us, that, as on the 
" one hand, he was, on account of his spotless inno- 
4 ' cence, entirely suited to be a sacrifice for sin, so, 
" on the other hand, his fulfilment of the moral law, 
** and more especially his obedience unto death, were 
• ; infinitely meritorious in the sight of God the Fa- 
" ther. When, therefore, we read that the righteous- 
" ness of Jesus Christ is imputed to the believer, we 
u may reasonably understand such a doctrine to im- 
" port that we are not only saved through the sacri- 
" lice of Jesus Christ, but rewarded through his mer- 
" its. Our sinfulness may properly be said to have 
V been imputed to Christ, because, when he under- 
" went the penalty which that sinfulness demanded, 
" he was dealt with as if he had been himself the 
" sinner ; and it is, I apprehend, on a perfectly ana- 
'** logous principle, that his righteousness is said to 
" be imputed to us ; because, through the boundless 
" mercy of God, we are permitted to reap the fruits 
ci of it. We are regarded as if, like him, we were 
iC absolutely guiltless, and are, therefore, delivered 
* 4 from everlasting punishment. We are graciously 
" accepted, as if, like him, we had meritoriously ful- 
u filled the whole law of God, and are, therefore, 
u rewarded with never-ending felicity. Thus it is, 
" that, in consequence of his union, through faith, 
" with Jesus, the Head of the church, the Christian 



181 

u is not only protected from the pains of hell, bat is 
" in possession of a well-grounded claim on the joys 
;i of heaven. Thus it is that grace ' reigns through 
" righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our 
"Lord;'" Rom. v. 21.* 

I said that this quotation must suffice ; but there 
is yet another, which I am constrained to make, be- 
cause of the clear light in which it places the dis- 
tinction between the believer's justification and his 
sanctification, a distinction sufficiently manifest to 
the attentive reader of the Scriptures, but one which 
previous Quaker writers have been strangely prone 
to confound; a proneness, of which both the fact and 
the cause may be noticed before the close of this or of 
next letter : — " On the whole, then, it is plain and un- 
" deniable, that the Spirit of truth and righteousness 
" is bestowed upon mankind, through the sole media- 
" tion of Jesus Christ. And now, in bringing this 
u point of our subject to its conclusion, I would ven- 
" ture to entreat the reader's attention to the close 
" and intimate association subsisting between two 
u great doctrines of Christianity ; which may indeed 
u be rightly distinguished, but can never be rightly 
u separated — justification through the blood of Christ, 
" and sanctification through his Spirit. In Scripture, 
" these doctrines are very generally treated of con- 

* Ibid, pages 425, 426, 
Q. 



182 

"jointly. Both are represented by the sacred writers 
" as essential to the work of salvation : both as ori- 
i( ginating in the boundless mercy of the Father ; 
" and both as arising immediately out of the sacrifice 
" of the Son of God. Was Christ < set forth ' of the 
" Father, * to be a propitiation through faith in his 
" blood ?' Did he ' bear our sins in his own body 
" on the tree ?' Did he thus * give himself for us ?' 
" It was not only for the remission of sins that are 
" past, and for the justification of penitent believers, 
" but also that he might ' sanctify and cleanse' his 
" church ; that he might ' redeem us from all ini- 
i( quity;' that our conscience might be ' purged from 
"dead works to serve the living God;' that 'we, 
" being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness ;' 
" Heb. ix. 14. 1 Pet. ii. 24. It is much to be de- 
" sired, that a holy caution should more and more 
" prevail among Christians, lest, by dwelling on 
" either of these doctrines, to the exclusion of the 
" other, they should lose the balance of divine truth ; 
" for, although persons who are accustomed to com- 
" mit this dangerous practical error, may participate 
" in some of the joys, and experience some of the 
" virtue, of true religion, they cannot fail to fall very 
" short of a just apprehension and satisfying enjoy- 
" ment of the beauty, the harmony, and the com- 
" pleteness, of the gospel dispensation."* 

* Ibid, pages 443, 444. 



183 

When 1 read such sentiments as those which this 
and preceding extracts contain ; and when I find 
the same writer, after an admirable summary of the 
scriptural evidence in support of our Lord's divinity, 
concluding in these explicit and solemn terms — " For 
i( my own part, I may venture to acknowledge a firm 
" conviction (grounded on long-continued study and 
" reflexion) that I must either give up the inspiration 
" of Scripture, and with it, perhaps, the truth of 
" Christianity itself, or allow the absolute and eternal 
" divinity of Jesus Christ. In choosing my alterna- 
" tive, I cannot, for a moment hesitate; for as, on the 
" one hand, the inspiration of Scripture and the 
" truth of Christianity rest on a basis which the pro- 
" foundest thought and widest investigation serve 
" only to establish, so, on the other hand, the glori- 
" ous doctrine of ' God manifest in the flesh,' although, 
" as to its mode, deeply mysterious, will ever be con- 
M sidered worthy of all acceptation by those who are 
" acquainted with the depth of their own natural 
" degradation, and know their need of an omnipotent 
" Redeemer"* — I cannot but feel my heart drawn 
to him in Christian love. He who, in so devout 
and earnest a frame of mind, holds and defends the 
doctrines of the divinity and atonement of Jesus, 
and the equal necessity of justification through his 

* Ibid, pages 369, 370, 

q2 



184 

blood and righteousness and sanctification by the 
gracious influence of his Spirit, — is one to whom, 
though I may regard him as, in various points, mis- 
taken, both as to his Master's mind and his Master's 
will, — I must be allowed, in spite of all mistakes, to 
offer the right hand of fellowship, as a partaker of 
" like precious faith" with myself. 

From the whole tenor of Mr Gurney's writings, I 
am satisfied, that the doctrine of free justification, — 
of justification on the ground of the Redeemer's right- 
eousness alone, without works of law, — is a doctrine 
which he holds with a firm faith, and which is dear 
to him as the sole ground of hope towards God, for 
himself and for a perishing world. He will, there- 
fore, be jealous of every encroachment upon it ; — 
and if he himself, in defending any peculiar article 
of his theological system, has been led, inadvertently, 
to adopt an explanation of any portion of Scripture, 
which even seems to be at variance with it, and 
which the passage itself neither requires nor admits, 
he will be glad to receive the correction of his error. 
This, I cannot but think, has been the case, in regard 
to the passage in the second chapter of the epistle to 
the Romans, adverted to in my last letter ; and of 
which I promised to notice in this the bearing of Mr 
Gurney's interpretation on the great doctrine of the 
sinner's acceptance with God. — The passage referred 
to is in verses 13 — 15, " For not the hearers of the 



185 

law are just before God, but the doers of the law 
shall be justified. For when the Gentiles which 
have not the law do by nature the things contained 
in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto 
themselves : who show the work of the law written 
in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, 
and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else 
excusing one another." — I enter at present into no 
critical discussions as to the proper rendering of any 
of the terms or phrases in the passage ; because, as 
such discussions would not materially affect the pre- 
cise point at issue, they would only distract the read- 
er's mind. " Upon this clear and striking passage," 
says Mr Gurney, " it may be observed, first, that the 
" law here mentioned is not the ceremonial law, as 
" the whole tenor of the apostle's argument plainly 
" shows; but the moral law of God, which was re- 
" vealed to the Jews, and was, with still greater com- 
" pleteness, unfolded under the Christian dispensa- 
" tion: secondly, that the Gentiles, here brought into 
" a comparison with the Jews, were not these con- 
" verts to Christianity, (for of these it could not, 
" with any truth, be asserted that they had not the 
" law;) but they were persons who had received no 
'•'outward revelation of the moral law of God: 
" thirdly, that the work of the law was nevertheless 
" written in their hearts, and that many of them (ac- 
" cording to the apostle's obvious supposition) were 
Q3 



186 

" thereby actually enabled to become doers of the 
" law : and lastly, that these persons were justified, 
" or accepted of the Father." * — With the first and 
second of these observations I perfectly agree ; but 
in the third and fourth I think Mr Gurney has gone 
beyond the apostle, drawing from his words what they 
were not intended to teach. In the third, for exam- 
ple, he assumes it to be " the apostle's obvious sup- 
position " that " many" of the Gentiles were " doers of 
the law'' in the sense of the designation in verse 13, 
where it is said "the doers of the law shall be justi- 
fied ;" — and in the fourth, that these " doers of the 
law" actually " ivere justified." — I have formerly 
endeavoured to show the amount of meaning in the 
phrases " doing the things contained in the law," 
- — " showing the works of the law written in their 
hearts," — and being " a law unto themselves." I 
must refer for this to my last letter. — In what the 
apostle says of the Gentiies, in verses 14, 15, his 
object is to show, that, although they had not the 
written law, the law of revelation, they had a law ; 
— that this was manifest in their " doing the things 
contained in the law;" in the testimony of their con- 
sciences ; and in the reasonings by which they con- 
demned or vindicated particular actions and courses 
of conduct. But when, in the thirteenth verse, he 

* Observations on the distinguishing views and practices of the 
Society of Friends. Chap. i. pages 29, 30. Seventh edition. 



187 

says, " Not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified" he 
seems to me, most evidently, to use language pre- 
cisely equivalent to what the law itself says — " The 
man who doeth these things shall live by them." 
These are the terms in which, as he states elsewhere, 
" Moses describeth the righteousness ivhich is by the 
law" He lays down the universally admitted prin- 
ciple of law, — that justification is by the doing of it. 
And he shows that this principle has application to 
Gentiles and Jews alike, both being under law. If, 
therefore, he represents those heathens of whom he 
speaks, as actually justified, he represents them as 
justified by the doing of the law. — His object is, to 
expose the folly of the Jews in trusting for their ac- 
ceptance with God to the mere possession of the law 
— to the hearing without the doing. This he does, 
first, by thus stating the principle, common to the 
divine law and all other laws, — essential even to the 
abstract idea of law, — that the doing of its require- 
ments is the sole ground on which a law can justify, 
or acquit, the subjects of it. And afterwards, to- 
wards the end of the chapter, he resumes the same 
point, and argues it hypothetically, — that is, on the 
supposition of certain cases existing. After a most 
pointed and awakening appeal to his countrymen, 
who, while they trusted and gloried in the law, 
through breaking of the law dishonoured God, he 



188 

reasons thus : " For circumcision verily profiteth, if 
thou keep the law ; but if thou be a breaker of the 
law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. There- 
fore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of 
the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for 
circumcision ? And shall not uncircumcision, which 
is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by 
the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?" 
Verses 25 — 27. The meaning of the apostle in the 
first of these verses — verse 25- — appears to be this ; 
- — You glory in being a Jew, — a descendant of Abra- 
ham ; and, without doubt, your belonging to that 
people is of eminent advantage to you, especially as 
affording you the knowledge of God's will. But you 
seem to forget the nature of that law in which you 
so confidently trust, — the extent of its requirements, 
- — the terms on which it promises life. Remember, 
that it is not to circumcision, — not to mere natural 
descent from Abraham, — not even to the knowledge 
of God's will thence resulting, — that life is promised : 
—it is to the doing of the law — " The man that do- 
eth these things shall live by them." — If, then, you 
keep — if you fulfil the law, your expectations of life 
from it will not be disappointed. In that case, your 
circumcision will profit you ; your Jewish extraction, 
and consequent knowledge of the law, will be of real 
and essential benefit. But if, on the contrary, you 
be a transgressor of the law, you must be aware that 



189 

to transgressors it gives no hope, — no promise of life. 
To transgressors it is all threatening, condemnation;, 
and curse. As a transgressor, therefore, your cir- 
cumcision can profit you nothing : it is " made un- 
circumcision ;" that is, you are not a whit the better 
for your privileges, more than the Gentiles, the un- 
circumcised Gentiles, who have never possessed them, 
and over whom you inconsiderately glory. Your 
being a Jew, — your boasted connexion with Abra- 
ham, and the sign of the covenant in your flesh, are 
of no service to you." — Then, in the two following 
verses — 26 and 27 — he urges this point upon their 
attention, in order the more effectually to convince 
them of the untenableness of their ground, — by sup- 
posing the case of an uncircumcised Gentile actually 
fulfilling the law. The argument in these verses 
may, I should think, be thus amplified : — " You trust 
in the letter of the law, and in circumcision. But, 
since it is not to the possession of these (as has just 
been observed,) that life is promised, but to the prac- 
tical fulBlment of the law in all its precepts ; let me 
suppose a heathen, who has neither the letter of the 
law nor circumcision on which to place any reliance, 
— let me suppose such a heathen to ' keep the right- 
eousness of the law,' — that is, although not possess- 
ing it in a written form, yet living fully up to its holy 
requirements : do you really imagine that such a one 
would perish, merely because he is not a Jew? What 



190 

is the difference between you, as a transgressor of the 
law, and a wicked Gentile? Does not it consist 
simply in your having * the letter and circumcision,' 
of which he is destitute ? If, then, you were to be 
accepted, notwithstanding that your character is as 
profligate as his, solely on account of your being in 
possession of these, would it not necessarily follow, 
that a Gentile, even although he should * keep the 
righteousness of the law,' must perish because he is 
without them? — that is, must perish for a thing which 
he cannot help, — and perish, in direct contravention 
of the very principle of the law, and the express let- 
ter of the divine assurance — * The man that doeth 
these things shall live by them ? ' Is it not, on the 
contrary, equally obvious and equitable, that, were 
such a heathen to be found, so far from being rejected 
on account of his uncircumcision, he should 'judge 
thee — possessing over thee the very superiority to 
which thou pretendest over him, — pronouncing the 
heavy aggravation of thy guilt, who, in flagrant vio- 
lation of the letter of the law, and of the privileges 
connected with thy circumcision, * dost transgress the 
law ?' — living in the wilful and remorseless breach of 
its pure and righteous precepts, misled by a strange 
insensate confidence in the mere possession of the 
book which contains them ! " 

In support of the hypothetical character of the 
apostle's reasoning here, it may be observed, in the 



191 

first place, that he has not yet entered on his forma! 
statement of the only ground of a sinner's acceptance 
with God, — whether Jew or Gentile ; but has here 
in view, as his leading, or rather his exclusive object, 
to convince the Jews, his unbelieving countrymen, of 
the fallacious presumption of their hope ; and as, in 
many cases, it is quite legitimate and conclusive to 
argue on supposition, so nothing can be more to his 
purpose, more fitted to expose the vanity of Jewish 
confidence, than the supposition actually made — And, 
secondly, the terms employed contribute further to 
show, that the case from which he argues is a hypo- 
thetical one. It is that of a Gentile, who is in a state 
of nature, "fulfilling" the law, — that is, rendering a 
complete obedience to its requirements : — for, although 
I would by no means affirm that the original word is 
always used in this strict and literal acceptation, yet 
it is, without question, its most proper and legitimate 
sense ; and, when so understood, it cannot, it is evi- 
dent, be considered as descriptive of any real char- 
acter, whether Gentile or Jew. 

I am well aware, that Mr Gurney is as far as pos- 
sible from holding the sentiment, that the Gentiles 
spoken of are justified by their " doing the things 
contained in the law," as if such doing were the 
meritorious cause of their acceptance. He disowns 
every such imputation : — " As the Gentiles," says he. 
" to whom the apostle was here alluding, were, ac- 



192 

a cording to their measure of light, sanctified through 
" the Spirit, and when sanctified, accepted, so, I 
" think, every Christian must allow, that they were 
" accepted, not because of their own righteousness, 
" but through the merits and mediation of the Son of 
" God." — If, therefore, all that he means be this, — 
that God conveys his lessons to mankind in two vo- 
lumes, the volume of nature, and the volume of reve- 
lation ; that the Holy Spirit may operate on the minds 
and hearts of men by the lessons of the former as 
well as by those of the latter ; and that if a man, 
who is destitute of the volume of revelation, learns 
aright what is taught in the volume he has, and is 
rightly and habitually, though it may be far from per- 
fectly, influenced by what he learns, such a man may 
be found among the saved, — owing his salvation to 
the merits of the Redeemer's mediation as its ground, 
and to the Spirit's agency as its efficient cause ; any 
one who has read the note appended to the preceding 
letter will perceive, that on this point the difference 
between us, in the theoretical principle of the case, 
is not very wide. But to me, I repeat, it is evident, 
that, when the apostle says " the doers of the law 
shall be justified," he lays down, as he does in other 
places, the general principle of the law, in terms of 
the same import as those of the law itself; and that 
to represent him as affirming, in such a connexion, 
the justification of those Gentiles, (many according 



193 

to Mr Gurney in number.) who u did the things con- 
tained in the law," is exceedingly unlike his wonted 
jealousy of the doctrine of justification by grace 
" without the deeds of the law." — And moreover, 
such an interpretation, while it requires straining to 
bring it into harmony with this fundamental doc- 
trine, does not seem to be consistent with the grand 
scope of the whole passage. From the middle of the 
first to the middle of the third chapter of the epistle, 
the leading object of the apostle is, to prove the uni- 
versal need of the salvation revealed in the gospel ; 
the need of it among Jews and Gentiles alike. He 
first brings in the Gentiles guilty, then the Jews : 
the Gentiles, as transgressors of the law of tradition 
and of conscience, — the Jews as transgressors of the 
written law, given them by divine revelation. It is 
thus he comes to his conclusion, chap. iii. 19. " Now 
we know, that what things soever the law saith, it 
saith to them who are under the law, that every 
mouth" (the mouth of the Jew as well as that of the 
Gentile) " might be stopped, and all the world be- 
come guilty before God." Having arrived at this 
conclusion, — the universal guilt of mankind, — he 
proceeds to found upon it the necessity of the grand 
gospel doctrine of justification by grace, through 
faith in the mediatorial righteousness of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and to give a clear and explicit state- 
ment of this doctrine, as well as of the comprehen- 

R 



194 

siveness of God's gracious purpose in the gospel 
scheme, as including Gentiles and Jews alike. Verses 
20 — 29. — Now, that in an argument of which the 
leading object is to establish the universal sinful- 
ness and guilt of men, with the ulterior view of 
basing upon that conclusion the doctrine of justi- 
fication by grace, — that in the course of such an 
argument he should introduce a representation of 
many among the Gentiles being brought, without 
the gospel, to a state of justification and sanctifica- 
tion, brought to sustain the character of " doers 
of the law" and persons accepted with God; — 
that he should bring before us Gentiles actually 
justified, before he has even closed that proof of 
universal guilt on which the doctrine of justification 
is founded ; — does not appear to my mind at all 
natural, or consistent with that lucid order and con- 
tinuity of reasoning, by which the argumentative 
parts of this apostle's writings are distinguished. — 
The whole of the second chapter, and the beginning 
of the third, appear to be by far most naturally in- 
terpreted, as a setting forth of principles, for the con- 
viction of the Jews ; — to shake their false confidences 
in external privilege ; — to show them the common 
ground on which they stood with the Gentiles, as 
fellow-sinners, only with the balance of comparative 
guilt against themselves, in proportion to their supe- 
rior light and various advantages ; — to prepare them 



195 

for the question and its answer in ch. iii. 9. " What 
then? are we better than they?" (we Jews than they 
Gentiles ?) " No, in no wise : for we have before 
proved both, Jews and Gentiles, that they are all 
wider sin. 1 * 

But I must pass from this to an inquiry of a differ- 
ent and more general kind. I have given, in copious 
extracts, the views of Joseph John Gurney on the 
doctrine of justification. They are clear, simple, 
scriptural. But — are they Quakerism? Let none 
be startled by the question. It is not a hasty incon- 
siderate one. I shall show you that there is room 
for it. There are large portions of the writings of 
this highly intelligent and devout Friend, in which 
we entirely lose sight of the peculiarities of Quaker 
sentiment and Quaker phraseology. He seems to 
lay aside his garb, or rather to divest the system of 
the costume in which before it had invariably ap- 
peared. But for the occurrence, here and there, of 
a word or phrase, which, to those familiar with the 
language of the body, conveys more than others 
might at all think of, we go through entire sections 
with unmingled pleasure, losing the Friend in the 
Christian, — almost forgetting even the inward light. 
I presume I speak according to truth, when I repre- 
sent them as the first Quaker writings, at least of any 
eminence, possessing this character. He stands per 
se ; and (if I am not greatly mistaken) with no in- 
R 2 



196 

considerable proportion of the more rigid Friends, 
who belong to the old school, and hold by the ancient 
fathers of Quakerism, he has, on this very account, 
been losing caste. I trust Mr Gurney, as an inquirer 
after truth, and an advocate of what he believes to 
be from God, has learned to estimate every thing of 
this kind at its proper value; and that, " counting all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Jesus Christ, ,, he will allow no consideration what- 
ever to tempt him one step aside from the straight- 
forward path which the pursuit of truth prescribes. 
And allow me again, with every feeling of respect, to 
remind you all, that the question must not be, What 
is Quakerism ? but what is Scripturism ? — not what 
is Foxism, or Pennism, or Barclayism, or Gurney- 
ism ? — but what is Paulism ? — Now, on the great 
doctrine of justification, am I not right in my appre- 
hension, that there has existed amongst Friends a 
very considerable measure of diversity of sentiment, 
and no small portion of undefined vagueness of con- 
ception ? I fear there has ; and I think it is imput- 
able to the incessant intrusion into this ground of the 
all-pervading article of your system — the inward 
light. This has infused into all the Quaker statements 
of this doctrine, previous to those of Joseph John 
Gurney, a characteristic mysticism. It has, on this 
and some other subjects, been a darkening light. At 
times, we have something approaching to clearness 



197 

on the doctrine of the sinner's acceptance with God ; 
— but, ere we are aware, the "inward light" throws 
its shadow over it, and wraps it in obscurity. It is 
the use made of the inward light in the sinner's jus- 
tification that has led to the otherwise unaccountable 
confounding of it with sanctification ; to the revers- 
ing of the scripture order, by giving the latter the 
precedence of the former, by representing works as 
in some way available to it, or by putting something 
or other (it is often difficult to say what) under the 
name of inward light, in place of the simple belief 
of the testimony of God in the Gospel, as necessary 
to its attainment. 

Those of you who are acquainted with your own 
authors will, I am persuaded, assent to the general 
correctness of this representation. In the statements 
of Mr Gurney, the ground of the sinner's acceptance 
with God is cleared of all such mysticism and con- 
fusion. I have ventured to ask, whether these state- 
ments are Quakerism. That many Friends agree 
with them, I rejoice to know. But if they are Qua- 
kerism, I apprehend they must be distinguished by 
the designation of modem Quakerism; and with me, 
I need not assure you, the designation would be no 
disparagement. But, that I may not appear to speak 
ivithout book, — or to make general assertions without 
specific proof, let me now, for a little, set the views 
of Joseph John Gurney in comparison with those of 
r 3 



198 

Robert Barclay, and see how far they agree, and how 
far they differ. The anonymous author of " Stric- 
tures" on Mr Newton's " Remonstrance to the So- 
ciety of Friends," complains bitterly of that gentle- 
man's partial quotations from Barclay. It is fre- 
quently not easy to determine the extent of quotation 
necessary to do an author justice, in presenting a fair 
and full idea, of his sentiments. It does not appear 
to me, that the author of the " Strictures" has made 
matters much better in behalf of Barclay, by the fill- 
ing up of what Mr Newton had omitted. But I 
shall endeavour to avoid exposing myself to any simi- 
lar charge, in the citation of such passages from the 
Apology as contain the views of its author on the 
essential article of gospel truth now under our no- 
tice, — the article of Justification. To this article 
his seventh proposition is devoted ; the illustration 
occupying forty -five octavo pages. I shall not be 
expected, I presume, to quote the whole ! 

I give, first of all, the proposition itself entire : — 
" As many as resist not this light, but receive the 
" same, it becomes in them a holy, pure, and spiritual 
" birth, bringing forth holiness, righteousness, purity, 
" and all those other blessed fruits which are accept- 
" able to God : by which holy birth, to wit, Jesus 
" Christ formed within us, and working his works in 
" us, as we are sanctified, so are we justified in the 
" sight of God, according to the apostle's words, — 



199 

" c But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye 
" are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
" by the Spirit of our God/ 1 Cor. vi. 11. There- 
" fore, it is not by our works wrought in our will, 
" nor yet by good works, considered as of themselves, 
11 but by Christ who is both the gift and the giver, 
" and the cause producing the effects in us ; who, as 
" he hath reconciled us when we were enemies, doth 
" also in his wisdom save us and justify us after this 
" manner, as saith the same apostle elsewhere, ' Ac- 
" cording to his mercy he saved us, by the washing 
" of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
« Ghost,' Tit. iii. 5." * 

After speaking of the " papists, as placing their 
" justification, not so much in any work of holiness 
" really brought forth in them, and real forsaking of 
" iniquity, as in the mere performance of some cere- 
" monies, and a blind belief which their teachers have 
" begotten in them, that the church and the Pope, 
i 6 having the absolute dispensation of the merits of 
" Christ, have power to make those merits effectual 
y for the remission of sins, and justification of such 
4 ' as will perform those ceremonies — " &c. he adds : 
— " This doctrine Luther and the protestants then 
u had good reason to deny and oppose; though many 
" of them ran into another extreme, so as to deny 

* Apology, page 196. 



200 

"good works to be necessary to justification, and to 
" preach up, not only remission of sins, but justifica- 
" tion by faith alone, without all works, however 
" good. So that men do not obtain their justifica- 
" tion according as they are inwardly sanctified and 
" renewed, but are justified merely by believing that 
" Christ died for them ; and so some may be per- 
" fectly justified, though they be lying in gross 
" wickedness ; as appears by the example of David, 
" who, they say, was fully and perfectly justified. 
" while he was lying in the gross sins of adultery and 
" murder," &c* 

" Forasmuch as all men who have come to man's 
" estate (the man Jesus only excepted) have sinned. 
" therefore all have need of this Saviour, to remove 
" the wrath of God from them due to their offences : 
" in this respect, he is truly said to have ' borne the 
" iniquities of us all in his own body on the tree,' 
" and therefore is the only Mediator, having quali- 
" fied the wrath of God toward us ; so that our for- 
" mer sins stand not in our way, being, by virtue of 
" his most satisfactory sacrifice, removed and par- 
" doned. Neither do we think that remission of sins 
" is to be expected, sought, or obtained, any other 
"way, or by any works or sacrifice whatsoever; 
" though, as has been said formerly, they may come 

* Ibid, page 200. 



201 

u to partake of this remission that are ignorant of the 
u history. So then, Christ, by his death and suffer- 
" ings, hath reconciled us to God, even while we are 
" enemies ; that is, he offers reconciliation unto us ; 
" we are put into a capacity of being reconciled ; 
" God is willing to forgive us our iniquities, and to 
" accept us, as is well expressed by the apostle, 2 
" Cor. v. 19. < God was in Christ, reconciling the 
" world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses 
" unto them, and hath put in us the word of recon- 
" ciliation.' And therefore the apostle, in the next 
" verses, entreats them, in Christ's stead, to be re- 
" conciled unto God ; intimating that, the wrath of 
" God being removed by the obedience of Christ 
" Jesus, he is willing to be reconciled unto them. 
" and ready to remit the sins that are past, if they 
" repent."* 

" We understand not, by this justification by 
' ; Christ, barely the good works even wrought by 
" the Spirit of Christ ; for they, as protestants truly 
" affirm, are rather an effect of justification than the 
" cause of it : but we understand the formation of 
" Christ in us, born and brought forth in us, from 
" which good works as naturally proceed as fruit from 
" a fruitful tree. It is this inward birth in us, bring- 
u ing forth righteousness and holiness in us, that doth 

* Ibid, page 208, 



202 

" justify us; which having removed and done away 
" the contrary nature and spirit, that did bear rule 
C{ and bring condemnation, now is in dominion over 
" all in our hearts. Those, therefore, that come to 
" know Christ thus formed in them, do enjoy him 
" wholly and undivided, who is the Lord our 
" righteousness. Jer. xxiii. 6."* 

" Though we place remission of sins in the right- 
" eousness and obedience of Christ performed by him 
" in the flesh, as to what pertains to the remote pro- 
" curing cause, and that we hold ourselves formally 
"justified by Christ Jesus formed and brought forth 
" in us ; yet can we not, as some protestants have 
" unwarily done, exclude works from justification. 
" For though properly we be not justified for them, 
" yet are we justified in them ; and they are neces- 
" sary as causa sine qua non 9 that is, the cause with- 
" out which none are justified." f 

" It is by this inward birth of Christ in man that 
" man is made just, and therefore so accounted by 
" God : — wherefore, to be plain, we are thereby, and 
" not till that be brought forth in us, formally, if we 
" must use that word, justified in the sight of God ; 
" because justification is both more properly and 
" more frequently, in Scripture, taken in its proper 
" signification, for making one just, and not reputing 

* Ibid, page 205. f Ibid, page 20b'. 



203 

iv one merely as such, and is all on? with sanctifica- 
" tion."* 

" Since good works as naturally follow from this 
" birth, as heat from fire, therefore are they of abso- 
" lute necessity to justification, as causa sine qua 
" non ; i. e. though not as the cause for which, yet 
" as the cause in which we are, and without which 
" we cannot be, justified. And, though they be not 
" meritorious, and draw no debt upon God, yet he 
" cannot but accept and reward them : for it is con- 
" trary to his nature to deny his own, since they may 
" be perfect in their kind, as proceeding from a pure 
" holy birth and root. Wherefore, their judgment 
" is false and against the truth, who say that the ho- 
" liest works of the saints are defiled and sinful in 
t; the sight of God : for these good works are not 
" the works of the law, excluded by the apostle from 
" justification."! 

" That we deserved those things, and much more, 
" for our sins, which he endured in obedience to the 
" Father, and according to his counsel, is true; but 
u that ever God reputed him a sinner, is denied: 
" neither did he ever die that we should be reputed 
" righteous, though no more really such than He was 
" a sinner, as hereafter appears. For indeed, if this 
" argument hold, it might be stretched to that length 

* Ibid, page 208. f Ibid » P 3 ^ 208< 



204 

" as to be very pteasing to wicked men that love to 
" abide in their sins : for if we be made righteous, 
" as Christ was made a sinner, merely by imputation, 
" then, as there was no sin, no not in the least, in 
" Christ, so it would follow, that there needed no 
u more righteousness, no more holiness, no more in- 
" ward sanctification in us, than there was sin in him, 
" So then, by his ( being made sin for us' must be 
* c understood his suffering for our sins, that we might 
" be made partakers of the grace purchased by him ; 
<c by the workings whereof we are ' made the right- 
" eousness of God in him.' For that the apostle 
u understood here a being made really righteous, and 
" not merely a being reputed such, appears by what 
" follows, seeing in verses 14, 15, 16. of the following 
" chapter, he argues largely against any supposed 
" agreement of light and darkness, righteousness and 
" unrighteousness, which must needs be admitted, if 
" men are to be reckoned ingrafted into Christ, and 
" real members of him, merely by an imputative 
" righteousness, wholly without them, while they 
" themselves are actually unrighteous. And indeed 
" it may be thought strange, how some men have 
" made this so fundamental an article of their faith, 
" which is so contrary to the whole strain of the Gos- 
" pel ; a thing which Christ, in none of all his ser- 
" mons and gracious speeches, ever willed any to rely 
" upon ; always recommending to us works, as instru- 



205 

" mental to our justification. And the more it is to 
" be admired, because that sentence or term (so fre- 
" quently in their mouths, and so often pressed by 
" them as the very basis of their hope and confidence) 
" to wit, the imputed righteousness of Christ, is not 
" to be found in all the Bible, at least as to my ob- 
" servation/'* 

M That it is by this revelation of Jesus Christ, and 
" the new creation in us, that we are justified, doth 
" evidently appear from that excellent saying of the 
" apostle included in the proposition itself, Tit. iii. 5. 
" * According to his mercy he hath saved us, by the 
" washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
" Ghost, &c.' Now, that whereby we are saved, 
" that we are no doubt justified by ; which words 
" are in this respect synonymous. Here the apostle 
" ascribes the immediate cause of justification to this 
" inward work of regeneration, which is Jesus Christ 
" revealed in the soul, as being that which formally 
" states us in a capacity of being reconciled to God; 
t; the washing or regeneration being that inward 
u power and virtue, whereby the soul is cleansed, and 
" clothed with the righteousness of Christ, so as to 
<; be made fit to appear before God."f 

" If no man can be justified without faith, and no 
" faith be living, nor yet available to justification 

a Ibid, pages 214, 215. f Ibid, page 225. 



206 

%i without works, then works are necessary to justifi- 
" cation."* 

" There is a great difference betwixt the works of 
" the law, and those of grace, or of the gospel. The 
" first are excluded ; the second not, but are necessary. 
" The first are those which are performed in man's 
" own will, and by his strength, in a conformity to the 
" outward law and letter ; and therefore are man's 
" own imperfect works, or works of the law, which 
" ' makes nothing perfect ;' and to this belong all the 
" ceremonies, purifications, washings, and traditions 
" of the Jews. The second are the works of the 
" Spirit of grace in the heart, wrought in conformity 
" to the inward and spiritual law ; which works are 
" not wrought in man's will, nor by his power and 
" ability, but in and by the power and Spirit of 
" Christ in us, and therefore are pure and perfect in 
" their kind, and may be called Christ's works, for 
" that he is the immediate author and worker of 
" them. Such works we affirm absolutely neces- 
" sary to justification, so that a man cannot be justi- 
" fied without them ; and all faith without them is 
" dead and useless, as the apostle James saith/'f 

I have made these extracts copiously, and, if I do 
not greatly deceive myself, impartially, — that is, so 
as to exhibit fairly, and as clearly as their own in- 

* Ibid, page 229. f Ibid * P a S e 231 - 



207 

herent and palpable inconsistencies will admit, the 
views of the author. The subject is a vital one ; 
resembling, in the Christian system, those parts in 
the corporeal frame, in which a wound, or any mate- 
rial disorganization, is invariably fatal. And the first 
thing I have to request of you is, that you would 
compare the doctrine taught in these extracts with 
that contained in the extracts from J. J. Gurney ; 
and, having done so, to ask yourselves the question, 
whether both can possibly have been the dictate of 
the same Spirit. It is impossible you can read the 
two, however hastily, without being struck with the 
difference, not in mere phraseology, but in the 
essence of the sentiment. Now, if there be any 
class of men amongst you, whom we should expect, 
more than others, to be under the guidance of that 
immediate inspiration for which you contend as the 
privilege of New Testament believers, it is surely 
your eminent and generally accredited writers. But 
then, the Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself; and 
if Robert Barclay and Joseph John Gurney contra- 
dict each other, — both may be wrong, but it is clear 
that both cannot be right ; and that by the one, or 
by the other, the Spirit of the Lord has not spoken. 
The question, it is true, is of comparatively little 
consequence, whether they do or do not agree with 
each other ; the grand point to be ascertained being, 
which of them, or whether either of them, agrees 
s2 



208 

with the apostles of Christ. I conceive the state- 
ment of the doctrine of justification given by Mr 
Gurney to be substantially that of Scripture, — clear, 
simple, satisfactory. That given by Barclay appears 
to me distinguished by a most extraordinary confu- 
sion of ideas, and, as far as its principles can be at 
all distinctly ascertained, subversive, materially if not 
utterly, of the apostolic gospel. This is a heavy 
charge ; but I do not make it lightly. — I shall leave 
you, however, in the meanwhile, to compare the 
views of Barclay, for yourselves, with the unerring 
oracles of divine truth ; that you may bring your 
minds to the perusal of my next letter with a seri- 
ousness proportioned to the deeply interesting nature 
of the subject. — I cannot but feel confident, that, if 
you examine these oracles aright, I shall be able to 
carry you along with me in my vindication of the 
heavy judgment which I have ventured to pronounce 
on Barclay's representations of it. 

Yours respectfully, 

R. W. 



LETTER VI. 

ON BARCLAY'S VIEWS OF JUSTIFICATION. 



Respected Friends, 

Having laid before you in my last 
letter, copious citations from the " Apology/ 5 on 
the all-important subject of the Bible doctrine ot 
justification, I concluded it with a charge, which I 
admitted to be a heavy one, but which I could not 
then consent to modify ; — namely, that, while the 
statement given by Barclay is " distinguished by a 
" most extraordinary confusion of ideas," it appears 
to me also, "so far as its principles can be distinctly 
" ascertained, to be subversive, materially if not ut- 
" terly, of the apostolic gospel." — This heavy charge 
I cannot now, any more than formerly, consent to 
modify. — Leaving, then, for subsequent notice the 
source of the confusion and the error, which it is not 
difficult to detect in the leading principles of ancient 
Quakerism, observe, in the meanwhile : — 

1, In Barclay's statement, explicitly and by per- 
vading implication, justification and sanctificaiion are, 
s 3 



210 

strangely identified. The distinction between the 
two is, in the Scriptures, as clearly defined, as if it 
had been traced with a pencil of light ; and it is 
well maintained in the statements of Mr Gurney. 
The distinction, indeed, is so plain, that one should 
have thought the weakest mind could not miss per- 
ceiving it ; which renders the perverting influence 
of an erroneous principle, in the case of a mind such 
as Barclay's, the more remarkable. Justification re- 
lates to state ; sanctification to character. In justi- 
fication, the sinner is pardoned and accepted ; that 
is, he is absolved from guilt and condemnation, and, 
though a sinner, is graciously treated as righteous ; on 
what ground, w r e shall see immediately: — in sanctifi- 
cation, those principles of personal holiness are in- 
fused into his heart, which extend their purifying 
influence to his life. The difference between the 
two may be simply illustrated by the case of a pris- 
oner at a human tribunal. He may be proved guilty, 
but pardoned : — the pardon of his crimes may be 
officially and solemnly announced to him ; and he 
may be dismissed from the bar, free of charge in the 
eye of law. But though his state is thus changed, 
his character may remain the same : he may carry 
with him from the bar, an unaltered and unmitigated 
disposition to evil, — a heart as wicked as ever. He 
is pardoned, and, in the eye of law, reputed and 
treated as innocent ; but he is unpurified from his 



211 

pollution. I am aware that what may, and frequently 
does, take place, under human governments, has no 
parallel in the government of God ; that under his 
administration, there is no pardon without purity, 
no change of state without a change of character, no 
justification without sanctification ; that the two are 
invariably found together ; no sinner, since the fall, 
having ever been justified without being sanctified, 
or sanctified without being justified. But this does 
not warrant their being confounded ; any more than 
we should be warranted to call justice mercy, and 
mercy justice, as they subsist in the divine nature, 
because the two are never found there in separation 
from each other. Nor can they be confounded, with- 
out the most pernicious results to the simplicity and 
consistency of gospel truth. That Barclay does con- 
found them, no attentive reader of the preceding 
extracts can hesitate for a moment to admit. He 
takes justification, according to its literal etymologi- 
cal import (justum facere,) to signify making right- 
eous ; and represents sinners as " made the right- 
eousness of God in Christ," not when they are par- 
doned and accepted on account of his perfect right- 
eousness, but when the principles of personal right- 
eousness are produced in them " by the workings of 
his grace:" — and indeed, w T hat can be more explicit 
than the assertion, (an assertion which cannot but 
surprise Mr Gurney and many more amongst you, 



212 

as much as it does myself) — that "justification is 
" both more properly and more frequently, in Serip- 
" ture, taken in its proper signification, for making 
" one just, and not reputing one merely as such, and 
" is all one with sanctijication /" 

2. This leads me to notice, the denial by Barclay 
of the doctrine of justification by imputed righteous- 
ness. — Nothing can be more weak, than discarding a 
doctrine, merely because the special phrase by which 
theologians may, for brevity's sake, have chosen to 
express it, does not occur in the Scriptures. Even 
were the phrase ever so objectionable, the doctrine 
may " stand sure," when human terms are rejected. 
You will perceive that Mr Gurney adopts the phra- 
seology which Barclay disowns ; and shows, in the 
clearest manner, that the truth expressed by it is one 
of the essential elementary principles of the Gospel. 
I have no objection to take my stand, for this doc- 
trine, on one text alone ; although I conceive the 
principle to pervade the New Testament. The text 
to which I refer is 2 Cor. v. 21. u For he hath made 
him who knew no sin to be sin for us; that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in him/' — There 
is in the words a double antithesis : — Jesus ts knew 
no sin," but he was " made sin :" — and he was 
" made sin," that we might be " made righteous- 
ness." On account of this second antithesis, which 
was evidently and pointedly intended by the apostle, 



213 

I prefer our own translation to that of those who 
would render the words " he hath made him a sin- 
offering ;" besides that it is not desirable, when it 
can be avoided, to understand the same word in dif- 
ferent senses in the same clause of a short sentence. 
There is no more impropriety in speaking of Christ's 
being " made sin," than in speaking of our being 
" made righteousness;" and, the antithesis being evi- 
dent and pointed, it follows, that we are " made right- 
eousness" in a sense corresponding to that in which 
Christ was " made sin." How, then, was Christ 
" made sin ?" I grant Mr Barclay, as readily and 
as strongly as he could have wished, the absurdity of 
the supposition that Christ was made a sinner \ — as if 
there could be any thing in the case of the nature of 
actual transference of our sinfulness to his personal 
character; — a conception nowhere to be found but 
in the ravings of antinomian insanity. How, then, 
setting aside this folly, does Mr Barclay himself in- 
terpret the phrase ? By his " being made sin for 
us," says he, " must be understood his suffering for 
u our sins." Well : this surely implies that our sins 
were imputed to him, or laid to his charge ; for how 
otherwise could he bear the suffering due to them ? 
I know of no possible way in which he could be 
" made sin," — or, in other words, in which our sins 
could become his, — but by imputation. And if so ; 
then, to make the antithesis fair, we must be " made 



214 

righteousness," — or in other words, his righteousness 
must become ours, — by imputation. Mr Barclay 
loses the antithesis altogether, when, after having 
interpreted Christ's being " made sin for us" of his 
" suffering for our sins," he explains our being " made 
the righteousness of God in him/' of our " bein^ 
" made partakers of the grace purchased by him, by 
" the workings whereof we are made the righteous- 
" ness of God in him ;" thus resolving our being 
"made righteousness" into our being sanctified, or 
made personally righteous. The true force of the 
antithesis evidently is, that, in being " made sin for 
us," Christ endured the penalty due to our sins as if 
they had been his ; and that, in being " made the 
righteousness of God in him," we receive the reward 
due to his righteousness, as if it had been ours. 
There is, on neither side, actual transference ; on 
both, there is imputation. I cannot put the all-im- 
portant truth in more appropriate terms than those 
in which it is clothed by Mr Gurney, at page 1 79. 
I refer you to that admirable statement, begging you 
earnestly to compare it with Barclay's, and both with 
Paul's; and to judge for yourselves, which of the 
two is in concord, and which at variance, with the 
dictates of the Spirit of Christ. Both right, I re- 
peat, they cannot be ; the one affirming the imputa- 
tion of Christ's righteousness to be the very ground 
of the believing sinner's acceptance with God, — the 



215 

other denying the imputation of Christ's righteous- 
ness altogether, as either the language or the senti- 
ment of Scripture ; the one resting on it as his only 
confidence, the other expressing his astonishment at 
all who place their hopes on such a basis, — and re- 
presenting it as "contrary to the whole strain of the 
" Gospel, — a thing which Christ in none of all his 
" sermons and gracious speeches ever willed any to 
" rely upon, always recommending to us works as 
" instrumental to our justification. " — Which of these 
is Quakerism? "Whether of them twain" was 
" taught of God ?" " Which way went the Spirit of 
Christ from" Paul, to dictate such things to Barclay? 
—But 

3. Mark w^hat Barclay says of works : — Jesus 
Christ according to him " always recommended 
works as instrumental to justification" If he did, 
then so of course did his apostles after him ; for it was 
his promised Spirit that " led them into all truth." We 
are to understand Mr Barclay, therefore, as affirming 
it to be the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, — 
the doctrine taught by the Spirit of truth in the 
Scriptures, that good works are " necessary to jus- 
tification" — " instrumental to justification" — " neces- 
sary as a causa sine qua non, that is, the cause with- 
out which none are justified." — Language more at 
variance than this with the representations of Scrip- 
ture, it is not easy to conceive. And when I say 



216 

so, I have fully in remembrance the distinction 
made by Barclay between the works of the law and 
the works of the Gospel ; the former of which he 
excludes from having an}' influence in justification, 
while he affirms the necessity of the latter. The 
inconsistency of this representation with itself will 
be noticed immediately: — my present object is, to 
point out its contrariety to the spirit and letter of 
the Gospel. The divine testimony is, that " all have 
sinned;" — that, all having sinned, all are condemned 
by the sentence of that law of which sin is the trans- 
gression, and of which the terms are so unequivocally 
explicit — " Cursed is every one that continueth not 
in all things that are written in the book of the law, 
to do them ;" so that, unless the man can be found 
who has " continued in all things written in the book 
of the law, and done them" — done them in principle 
and in practice, in all their extent and spirituality of 
requirement, — the man cannot be found who is not 
under this curse ; — that from this state of condemna- 
tion and curse, there is no deliverance possible by 
any "works of righteousness" which the sinner can 
do, — the righteousness of a sinner being a contradic- 
tion in terms, and every attempt of a sinner to justify 
himself an attempt at an impossibility, and an insult 
to the God with whom he has to do ; — that a sinner 
must be a debtor to mercy; — that the only ground on 
which mercy is dispensed to sinners is, the righteous- 



217 

ness, atonement, and intercession of the Son of God, 
the Divine Mediator between God and men ; — and 
that in the meritorious and saving virtue of his fin- 
ished work sinners obtain an interest by faith, — that 
is, by believing the record that God hath given of 
his Son, — u the word of reconciliation, — that God 
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not 
imputing their trespasses unto them," — that " grace 
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, by 
Jesus Christ our Lord," — that " the wages of sin is 
death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord." — Justification by grace is 
the first principle of the Gospel. Deny it, and the 
Gospel is gone. The Gospel is " glad tidings." But 
to sinners, there can be no glad tidings but tidings of 
grace. Grace is their essential element. Take it 
aw r ay, and there is nothing left that deserves the 
name. Now, in the philosophy of the Bible, and in 
the philosophy of common sense, grace and works 
are opposites; and no terms can be more explicit than 
those in which the apostle of the Gentiles teaches us, 
that salvation must be entirely of the one, or entirely 
of the other, — that there is no medium, and no possi- 
ble combination or compromise : — " If it be by grace, 
then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more 
grace: — but if it be by w r orks, then is it no more of 
grace; otherwise work is no more work." Rom. xi. 
6. Thus grace and works reciprocally neutralize 

T 



218 

and destroy each other. Introduce grace, and works 
are gone: introduce works, and grace is gone. — And 
if justification is by grace, and at the same time 
through faith, then must the opposition between faith 
and works be as perfect as the opposition between 
grace and works. Without this, the scheme would 
be inconsistent with itself. And such accordingly is 
the inspired statement. Justification by faith and 
justification by works, are as perfect contraries as 
justification by grace and justification by works ; 
faith itself forming no part of the ground of accept- 
ance, but being only the medium of the sinner's in- 
terest in that ground ; and this, on the simple prin- 
ciple, that, as the Gospel comes to sinners in the 
form of a testimony, there is no conceivable way in 
which the blessings revealed in a testimony can be 
received, but the reception of the testimony. Grace 
and faith, standing equally contradistinguished from 
works in the matter of justification, are in full har- 
mony with each other; — so much so, that in the con- 
stitution of the Gospel, according to the apostle, faith 
is the appointed medium of justification, for the 
very reason of its securing the undivided glory to 
grace as the ground of justification. " It is of 
faith," says he, "that it might be by grace," 
Rom. iv. 16. 

The doctrine of which I now speak is one of so 
pervading a character in the Holy Scriptures, that, 



219 

in adducing proofs, selection is the difficulty. I shall 
satisfy myself with two passages, the first that pre- 
sent themselves to memory. — " We who are Jews by 
nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that 
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but 
by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed 
in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the 
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law : for 
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," 
Gal. ii. 15, 16. " Therefore, by the deeds of the law, 
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight ; for by 
the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the right- 
eousness of God without the law is manifested, hav- 
ing been witnessed by the law and the prophets ; 
even the righteousness of God which is by faith of 
Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all them that be- 
lieve : for there is no difference; for ail have sinned, 
and come short of the glory of God; being justified 
freely, by his grace, through the redemption that is 
in Christ Jesus ; whom God hath set forth, a propi- 
tiation through faith in his blood, to declare his 
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past 
through the forbearance of God ; to declare at this 
time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the 
justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. Where is 
boasting, then ? It is excluded. By what law ? Of 
works ? Nay ; but by the law of faith. Therefore 
we conclude, that a man is justified by faith, without 
x 2 



220 

the works of the law," Rom. iii. 20 — 28. — A law 
is a divine institute. The " law of faith" is that 
divine institute, according to which sinners are to be 
justified by faith in the merits of another, and not 
by any works of their own. This institute has all 
the authority of a law. The "law of works" is that 
divine institute, according to which life is promised 
to personal obedience. On the terms* of this law it 
was, that life was held originally ; and continued to 
be held, till man became a sinner. It was not then 
abrogated. Its requirements continued on God's 
part, and its obligations on man's. But it could no 
longer be the ground of acceptance. As soon as 
human nature became a fallen, sinful, guilty nature, 
the " law of works," in this view of it, as a means 
of justification, was set aside for ever. It could only 
condemn. The ''law of faith" took its place. So 
that, as it had been the will of God, that man, in his 
state of innocence, should hold life on the ground of 
his own obedience, so was it the will of God, that 
man, in his state of sin and guilt, should have life 
restored to him on the ground of the merits of the 
promised Mediator, and should obtain it by faith in 
his name ; that he should be justified, not by works, 
but by grace. Ever since the fall, this has been the 
published will or law of heaven, in regard to sinful 
men. Having forfeited life by the "law of works," 
they can be justified only by the " law of faith/' — 



221 

which, as we have seen, is the same thing with the 
law of grace. This is God's authoritative appoint- 
ment ; and he who contravenes it, and, by seeking 
justification otherwise, breaks " the law of faith," is 
as really a transgressor against the will of God, as 
when, by eating the forbidden fruit, man originally 
broke " the law of works." To sinners, then, justi- 
fication by faith is God's law ; and it may, with per- 
fect truth, be said, that grace is the law of the 
Gospel. 

I have adverted to Mr Barclay's distinction (a dis- 
tinction, however, by no means peculiar to him) be- 
tween the ivorks of the law, and the ivorks of the 
Gospel ; the latter being the works which, he holds, 
contribute to justification. Now, I know of no 
works that are not works of law. Every good work 
is a work of obedience ; and all obedience supposes 
law. " Where no law is," there can be no obedience, 
any more than there can be " transgression." The 
distinction, then, cannot relate to the works them- 
selves ; it must relate to the 'principle from which 
they are performed. I can form no conception of 
any other difference. Works of the law must be 
works performed from a legal principle ; while works 
of the Gospel are works performed from an evangeli- 
cal principle. Let us see, then, on this supposition, 
how matters will stand. I am naturally led by it to 
observe, 

t3 



222 

4. Barclay's system, on this subject, is as full as it 
can hold of inconsistency ivith itself. — To begin at 
the point to which I have just adverted. Works of 
the law do not contribute to justification ; works of 
the Gospel do. If works of the Gospel do contri- 
bute to justification, then it must be the design of 
God, in the constitution of the Gospel, that they should, 
And if so, the principle from which they are done 
ought to be in accordance with that design ; they 
ought to be done with a view to it; — with a view, that 
is, to justification. But if they are done with this 
view, they are, in the very principle of them, con- 
verted into works of law. They involve, that is, the 
palpable contradiction, of evangelical works done 
from a legal principle. If it should be said, they 
may contribute to justification, although not per- 
formed with a view to it ; then it will follow, that it 
is wrong to have our principles and motives of action 
in conformity with the divine arrangement of means 
and ends in the constitution of the Gospel ! — But 
this is not all. According to Barclay, " protestants 
are right in affirming" that " good works, wrought by 
the Spirit of Christ, are rather an effect of justifica- 
tion than the cause of it;" — and yet he himself af- 
firms these works to be the " causa sine qua, non, 
that is, the cause without which none are justified /" 
But a cause must precede its effect ; and an effect 
must follow its cause. If good works are the effect 



223 

of justification, they cannot be its cause: — and if they 
be its cause, they cannot be its effect. Even sup- 
posing the idea of meritoriousness excluded from the 
cause altogether; still there can be no excluding from 
a cause of the idea of precedence ; nor from an ef- 
fect, of the idea of sequence. If good works, there- 
fore, be the " cause without which none are justi- 
fied," — if in this sense, they be " necessary to justi- 
fication, " — then they must exist before it : and if, on 
the contrary, they be " rather the effect than the 
cause," then they must be consequent upon it, and 
can only exist after it. — And when, confounding jus- 
tification with sanctification, or rather with regenera- 
tion, he speaks of it as consisting in " the forma- 
tion of Christ in us, born and brought forth in us. 
from which good icorhs as naturally proceed as fruit 
from a fruitful tree," — it takes the precedence of the 
works, as the tree does of the fruits it produces. Yet 
in the very next sentence he adds — " It is this inward 
birth in us, bringing forth holiness and righteousness 
in us, that doth justify us;" where it appears again 
as a sequence ! — There is, in truth, in Mr Barclay's 
representations of this subject, the most extraordinary 
and inextricable confusion. We have justification as 
the cause of good works, and good works as the 
cause of justification ; — the cause the effect, and the 
effect the cause ; — we are justified by faith, we are 
justified by works, we are justified by both, and we 



224 

are justified by neither; — we are justified by being 
sanctified, and we are sanctified by being justified, 
and justification and sanctification are one and the 
same thing ! 

This is not a caricature. Every distinct member 
of the self-contradictory statement might be authen- 
ticated by appropriate citations. And all this comes 
of his mystical " inward light," and the vain attempt 
to make the phraseology of Scripture, itself so dis- 
tinguished for simplicity, quadrate with his necessa- 
rily vague conceptions of this impalpable and sha- 
dowy principle, — this " vehiculum dei" — this " real 
spiritual substance, in which God and Christ are as 
wrapped up," — " in which God, as Father, Son, and 
Spirit, dwells," — which " subsists in the hearts of 
wicked men even while they are in their wickedness," 
—and which yet is " the spiritual body of Christ, 
the flesh and blood of Christ, which came down from 
heaven, of which all the saints clo feed, and are 
thereby nourished unto eternal life I " It is thus that, 
by a wretched perversion of the figurative terms of 
Scripture, " the man Christ Jesus," the messenger 
of the covenant, " Immanuel, God with us," " the 
light of the world," is converted into a principle ; 
and that principle, by some mystical inward opera- 
tion (which can only be understood by experience, 
but which, judging from the attempts actually made, 
experience has never enabled any man to explain) 



225 

'■' mediates, and atones" and renders " God propi- 
tious" and " reinstates man in the holy image he 
lias fallen from by sin !" So speaks William Penn ; 
and, with hardly less mysterious obscurity, speaks 
Robert Barclay, when he represents this " spiritual, 
" heavenly, invisible principle, in which God, as 
" Father, Son and Spirit dwells," as " a seed which 
" of its own nature draws, invites, and inclines to God," 
" a measure of which is in all men ;" so that, " when 
" it is resisted Christ is said to be slain or crucified : 
" and, on the contrary, as this seed is received in the 
" heart, and suffered to bring forth its natural and 
" proper effect, Christ comes to be formed and raised, 
" of which the Scripture makes so much mention, 
" calling it the new man ; Christ within, the hope of 
" glory. This is that Christ within, which we are 
" heard so much to speak and declare of, every where 
" preaching him up, and exhorting people to believe 
" in the light, and obey it, that they may come to 
" know Christ in them, to deliver them from all sin" 
And then — " As many as resist not this light, but 
" receive the same, it becomes in them a holy, pure, 
u and spiritual birth, bringing forth holiness, right- 
" eousness, purity, and all those other blessed fruits 
" which are acceptable to God : by which holy birth. 
" to wit, Jesus Christ formed within us, and working 
" his works in us, as we are sanctified, so are we 
"justified in the sight of God" — Thus we are justi- 



226 

lied, not by believing on the Christ who died on Cal- 
vary, the atoning " Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sins of the world," — but by receiving and cher- 
ishing a mystical principle, called the " universal 
light," the " saving light," the " Christ within :" — 
and this being the new birth, we are justified by being 
born again. — In contrast with ail this mysticism, so 
unintelligible in itself, and so wide of the simplicity 
of the Scriptures, it is refreshing to recur to the lu- 
minous and truly evangelical representations of this 
ail-important subject, from the pen of Joseph John 
Gurney: — "Man by nature is the child of wrath. 
* labouring under the curse of the law — the awful 
" sentence of eternal death. What, then, can be 
" conceived more adapted to his need, thsm justi/lca- 
" tion — a plenary remission of all his sins through 
" the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and a free aceept- 
" ance of him as righteous, for the sake of a right- 
" eous Saviour ? Here he finds reconciliation with 
" a God of justice, deliverance from condemnation 
" and eternal punishment, and a well-founded hope 
" of immortal bliss. The utmost claims of the law 
" are satisfied ; the holiness of the Creator is more 
" than ever manifested ; and the broken-hearted sin- 
" ner reposes in peace on the bosom of infinite mer- 
" cy. In himself, indeed, as a transgressor from his 
" birth, he is vile and polluted ; but, by the blood of 
"Jesus sprinkled on his heart, his conscience is 



227 

"purged from every dead work; and, having oi> 
' ; tained an interest in the Saviour of men, he wears 
" a robe of righteousness in which there is no 
" spot. God accepts him in the Beloved ; and 
u adopts him, as a child of grace, and as an heir of 
u glory."* 

5. I have but one observation more to offer on 
Mr Barclay's statements. It relates to the strange 
misrepresentation of the doctrine of justification by 
faith alone, without works, — as if it implied that 
men might be justified by faith, continuing in sin. — 
Thus, as a specimen of more to the same purpose : 
— " This doctrine Luther and the protestants then 
" had good reason to deny and oppose; though many 
" of them ran into another extreme, so as to deny 
" good works to be necessary to justification, and to 
" preach up, not only remission of sins, but justifica- 
" tion by faith alone, without all works, however 
" good. So that men do not obtain their justifica- 
" tion according as they are inwardly sanctified and 
" renewed, but are justified merely by believing that 
" Christ died for them : and so some may be per- 
" fectly justified, though they be lying in gross 
" wickedness ; as appears by the example of David, 
" who, they say, was fully and perfectly justified, 

* " Hints on the portable evidences of Christianity, by Joseph 
John Gurney," p. 138. — as quoted by Richard Ball, in hi* 
" Holy Scripture the Test of Truth." 



228 

" while he was lying in the gross sins of murder and 
u adultery." 

But there cannot be a grosser slander of the pro- 
testant doctrines than this. That in the wild ravines 
of antinomianism, representations may be found, such 
as afford too much countenance to the slander, is, I 
am aw r are, too true. But still it is slander. If evan- 
gelical protestants taught, that a sinner might be jus- 
tified without being sanctified, — that there might be 
pardon without penitence, — acceptance in the sight of 
God, without regeneration and a new heart, there 
would be ground for the charge. But it is not so ; 
and Mr Barclay knew, or ought to have known, when 
he wrote, that it was not so. Justification and 
sanctification, though blessings distinct in kind, — the 
one (as before explained) relating to change of state, 
the other to change of character, — are yet, in point 
of fact, inseparable in the sinner's experience. The 
same faith of the gospel testimony which brings the 
sinner into union with Christ, and gives him an in- 
terest in his atonement and righteousness for the for- 
giveness of his sins and his acceptance with God, 
introduces, at the same time, into his heart the prin- 
ciple of regeneration and progressive holiness. The 
truth as it is in Jesus, which, under the teaching and 
power of the Spirit, is the means of his regeneration, 
being received into his heart by faith, continues to 
operate there according to its own holy nature. 



229 

" Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of 
incorruptible, by the word of God" (immediately 
afterwards interpreted of " the Gospel") " which 
liveth and abideth for ever," — this " his seed remain- 
eth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of 
God." 1 Pet. i. 23, 25. compared with 1 John Hi. 
9. The new nature, of which he then becomes the 
partaker, is opposed to all sin, and, in the operation of 
its principles, productive only of holiness. Sin, it is 
true, remains ; but it belongs to the old nature ; and 
it remains, because, in regeneration, the principles of 
that nature are not annihilated, but only overpowered 
and brought into subjection. — " There is therefore 
now no condemnation to them who are in Christ 
Jesus :" — this is justification ; and it is in virtue of 
their being "in Christ Jesus'' that it is enjoyed; 
faith so uniting them to him, that his righteousness 
becomes theirs, as being that of their substitute : — 
" Who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit :" 
this is sanctification ; and, according to the explicit 
and universal testimony of scripture, none are " in 
Christ Jesus," and of the number of those " to whom 
there is no condemnation," who do not thus " walk 
after the Spirit." — Justification is by faith ; but it is 
by a faith that is always subsequently productive. 
There is, in truth, no other. An unproductive faith 
is no faith ; any more than an unproductive charity 
is really charity. The faith that does not sanctify, 
u 



230 

we may at once conclude, has not justified ; for an 
unsanctified believer is just as great an anomaly and 
impossibility, under the gospel covenant, as a justi- 
fied unbeliever. There are no good works without 
faith ; and there is no faith without good works. — 
How strikingly does the apostle Paul teach us the 
double lesson, of the exclusion of all works from the 
ground of our salvation, and yet the necessity of them 
in all the saved, as the very fulfilment of God's pur- 
pose in their new creation, when he thus sets the two 
in immediate juxtaposition : — " For by grace are ye 
saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it 
is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should 
boast. For we are his workmanship, created in 
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath be- 
fore ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. 
ii. 8 — 10. — The sinner, then, who presumes to give 
his own works any place in the ground of his accept- 
ance and salvation, — and the sinner who imagines 
himself accepted and saved, without bringing forth 
good works, — are equally in error. The one mis- 
takes the foundation of gospel hope ; the other mis- 
takes the nature of gospel salvation. The one, in 
joining his own works with the righteousness of 
Christ, unites what God has separated ; the other, in 
fancying himself justified by Christ's righteousness, 
while he has not been sanctified by Christ's Spirit, 
separates what God has united. God " justifies the 



231 

ungodly" — that is, no godliness of theirs, even sup- 
posing they had it, enters into the ground of their 
acceptance : — but he does not justify them, contin- 
uing in their ungodliness. " The grace of God 
which bringeth salvation — teacheth them, that, deny- 
ing ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live 
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world ; 
looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious ap- 
pearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ; 
who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us 
from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar 
people, zealous of good works. " Titus ii. 11 — 14. 

I have dwelt long upon this subject ; because, in 
the strictest sense of the term, it may be denomina- 
ted fundamental; and because, from the writings of 
Barclay and others of your older authors, there is 
reason to fear that your " Society" has, to no incon- 
siderable extent, been leavened with vague, and crude, 
and unscriptural conceptions of it. I rejoice that 
such a man as Joseph John Gurney has, by his pub- 
lications, and otherwise, been exerting himself to 
" purge out this old leaven," and in its room to sub- 
stitute — not new, but still older, — the better leaven of 
the doctrine of prophets and apostles. But, while he 
states truth, why does he not more explicitly condemn 
error? Why is he so chary in finding any fault with 
the writers of his own body by whom the corrupt 
leaven was introduced, and propagated, and fixed, — 
u2 



232 

writers from whom he differs so essentially, that, if his 
doctrine be true and saving, theirs must be false and 
perilous? Is it, that he is afraid of exposing to 
question the doctrine of immediate inspiration, or 
what, in more modified terms, he denominates " the 
perceptible influence and guidance of the Spirit of 
truth ?" If so, the course is not worthy of him. He 
is sacrificing truth to unity; and to a unity, too, that 
is not real, but external merely ; not a unity of sound 
principle, but of expediency and esprit du corps; a 
mechanical admixture of various and discordant ma- 
terials, rather than an intimate, homogeneous, chemi- 
cal affinity. The points of difference are of such a 
nature and magnitude, as not to admit of neutrality, 
or of compromise. No middle course can be steered 
between them. If the views entertained by him of 
the doctrine of justification be in harmony with the 
mind of Christ, then must those of Penn and Bar- 
clay be " another gospel. " The question, which of 
the two is genuine Quakerism, is one of comparatively 
little moment. But assuredly, the religious commu- 
nity which harbours, and tolerates, and cherishes 
both, is, in no trivial degree, " divided against itself;" 
and, in such circumstances, infinite Wisdom has fore- 
warned of the result. The attempt to maintain it in 
vigour and prosperity, when the materials of it, com- 
ing to light, are found to be so essentially and exten- 
sively heterogeneous, is to " fight against God f for 



233 

it involves unfaithfulness to truth, to Christ, to the 
church, and to the souls of men. — If the doctrine of 
justification by grace, through faith in the righteous- 
ness and atonement of Jesus, be the " articulus 
stantis ecclesice ;" then must the doctrine by which 
justification is placed on any ground of human merit, 
or on any thing else whatever than the divine virtue 
of the Redeemer's mediatorial work, be the " articu- 
lus cadentis ecclesice ;" — an element, in as far as it 
exists, of decay and ruin. — In regard to those who 
hold such an error, I cannot for a moment admit a 
doubt, the apostle would have applied, in all its im- 
perativeness, his injunction to Timothy — " From 
such withdraw thyself/' 

My next letter will consist principally of an ex- 
amination of those passages of the Scriptures which 
are usually adduced in support of your " inward 
light." 

Yours respectfully, 

R. W. 



u3 



LETTER VII. 

ON THE SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY PLEADED FOR 
THE "INWARD LIGHT." 



Respected Friends, 

The confusion in Robert Barclay's mind, 
by which, so very strangely, he has been led to con- 
found and blend together, in his statements and illus- 
trations, doctrines so palpably distinct as those of 
justification and sancti/ication, may be traced, without 
difficulty, as I have formerly hinted, to the predomi- 
nant influence of his views of the " inward light," — 
which, in his case, as in that of many more, only 

— " led to bewilder, and dazzled to blind." 

— That light, we have seen, consists not in the know- 
ledge of any thing that is externally revealed, or that 
comes to the mind of its possessor through any ex- 
traneous channel. It is a principle within, common 
to ail that are born into the world ; yet not inherited 
or bestowed by nature, but the gift of the Holy Spirit, 
and the fruit of Christ's mediation. Now, what I 



235 

wish you particularly to notice at present is, that 
according to the representations of your standard 
writers, this light is at once, and equally, the law and 
the Gospel. It is the discovery and rule of duty ; 
and it is the means of salvation. Here lies, to no 
inconsiderable extent, its deceptive influence on the 
subject before us. It is the law, or rule of duty; and 
by it, therefore, must be " the knowledge of sin :" — 
and yet, although this is the very reason assigned by 
the apostle why the law cannot justify, this light is 
saving light. It imparts no knowledge of the Sa- 
viour revealed in the Gospel testimony, — no know- 
ledge of " the truth as it is in Jesus :" — and yet, — 
although it is solely " the knowledge of the only true 
God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent" that is 
" life eternal," — this light is saving light ; — light by 
which all men are put into a capacity of salvation. — 
How, then, does it save ? Seeing it reveals nothing 
respecting any ground of pardon or acceptance with 
God, beyond what exists in the sinner's own bosom, 
it is no difficult matter to perceive the infallible 
tendency ; leading precisely to the result apparent in 
the confused conceptions of Barclay. How can it 
save in any other way, than by some supposed opera- 
tion in the sinner's mind and heart? And if so, then 
there is evidently no room left for justification, — (in 
the proper forensic sense of the term, as meaning 
pardon, acquittal, acceptance before God,) — on the 



236 

ground of a righteousness extraneous to himself; but 
it comes, inevitably, to be confounded with personal 
righteousness, or sanctification. The " inward light" 
is conceived to impart the knowledge of duty, to- 
gether with a certain favourable disposition towards 
it, — a kind of constraining divine influence to what 
is good, — which may, however, be resisted : — and, 
according to Barclay, it is by conformity to this 
knowledge, by following this disposition, by yielding 
to this influence, that sinful men are justified. Now 
it is by ascribing justification to this personal influ- 
ence in the sinner's own mind, that Barclay, almost 
of necessity, identifies it with sanctification. 

Allow me to illustrate my meaning, and confirm my 
charge, by a quotation, which will, at the same time, 
serve as a specimen of his general principles of exposi- 
tion on such subjects. — " This saving spiritual light is 
" the gospel, which the apostle says expressly is preach- 
" ed in every creature under heaven, even that very 
" Gospel of which Paul was made a minister, Col. i. 
" 23. For the Gospel is not a mere declaration of 
" good things, being the power of God unto saiva- 
" tion to all those that believe, Rom. i. 16. Though 
" the outward declaration of the Gospel be taken 
" sometimes for the Gospel, yet it is but figuratively, 
" and by a metonymy. For, to speak properly, the 
" Gospel is this inward power and life which preach- 
" eth glad tidings in the hearts of all men, offering 



237 

" salvation unto them, and seeking to redeem them 
" from their iniquities ; and therefore it is said to be 
" preached in every creature which is under heaven: 
" whereas there are many thousands of men and 
" women to whom the outward Gospel was never 
" preached. Therefore the apostle Paul, Rom. i. 
" where he says ' the Gospel is the power of God 
" unto salvation/ adds, that ' therein is revealed the 
" righteousness of God from faith to faith ;' and also 
" < the wrath of God' against such as ' hold the truth 
" in unrighteousness :' for this reason, saith he, be- 
" cause that which may be known of God is mani- 
u fest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. 
" Now that which may be known of God is known 
" by the Gospel, which was manifest in them. For 
" those of whom the apostle speaks had no outward 
" gospel preached to them ; so that it was by the 
" inward manifestation of the knowledge of God in 
" the??i, which is indeed the Gospel preached in man, 
" that the righteousness of God is revealed from 
" faith to faith ; that is, it reveals to the soul that 
" which is just, good, and righteous ; and that, as 
" the soul receiveth it and believes, righteousness 
" comes more and more to be revealed, from one 
" degree of faith unto another. For though, as the 
" following verse saith, the outward creation declares 
u the power of God ; yet that which may be known 
" of God is manifest within; by which inward mani- 



238 

" festation we are made capable to see and discern 
" the eternal power and Godhead in the outward cre- 
" ation ; so, were it not for this inward principle, we 
" could no more understand the invisible things of 
" God by the outward visible creation, than a blind 
" man can see and discern the variety of shapes and 
" colours, or judge of the beauty of the outward 
" creation." * 

I do not remember if, within the compass of a 
single page, I have ever met with a more extraordi- 
nary tissue of blunders and inconsistencies. You 
must allow me to state and expose them, seriatim ; 
as this may furnish us with principles, such as will 
facilitate the discussion of other passages of Scrip- 
ture besides those here introduced. — Observe, then — 

1. " This saving spiritual light is the Gospel"— 
" even that very gospel of which Paul was made a 
" minister." — If so, it must testify of Jesus : for the 
Gospel of which Paul was made a minister, which he 
had it in commission to preach, and which he " did 
preach, warning every man and teaching every man 
in all wisdom," was " the testimony of Jesus." He 
" determined not to know any thing among his hear- 
ers, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." It was a 
testimony of facts and principles. If, therefore, the 
inward light be " the very gospel whereof Paul was 

* Apology, pages 167, 168. 



239 

made a minister," then they who possess it must 
possess the knowledge of " Jesus Christ and him 
crucified," — the knowledge of the facts and princi- 
ples contained in the divine testimony concerning 
him. All mankind have the inward light ; all man- 
kind, therefore, must have the knowledge of Jesus 
Christ, — the knowledge of " the word of reconcilia- 
tion, that God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ;" 
for the ministry of Paul, as " an ambassador of Christ," 
was to bear to his fellow-sinners the tidings of this 
•• word of reconciliation." Is it, then, so ? Is the 
whole heathen world in possession of the Gospel — 
" the very gospel which Paul preached?" Paul 
speaks to the Colossians of their having " heard this 
gospel ;" and he dates its spiritual productiveness in 
them from " the day they heard it, and knew the 
grace of God in truth." Beyond all question, this 
refers to the preaching of those who had first brought 
them the glad tidings of salvation in the message of 
the Gospel. But, if Barclay be right, they had the 
Gospel before. It was no news to them. They had 
it in the " spiritual saving light" — " the very gospel 
of which Paul was made a minister." And so it is 
with all mankind. So that, since the Gospel which 
Paul preached is the Gospel which missionaries pro- 
fess to preach, these heralds of the cross carry to the 
heathen only what they already have ! On what 



240 

ground can Robert Barclay, or any sober-minded 
man, maintain this ? — Let us see. 

2. " The Gospel is not a mere declaration of good 
" things, being c the power of God unto salvation to 
" every one that believeth.' " — Here are two state- 
ments, of which it is not easy to say which is the 
more extraordinary — First, that the Gospel is not a 
mere declaration of good things ; and, secondly, that 
this is proved from its being " the power of God unto 
salvation !" — Now, in the first place, I know not what 
else the Gospel is, than a " declaration of good 
things." The entire language of the Scriptures so 
describes it. The prophets anticipate it, as a mes- 
sage to be brought by divinely commissioned ambas- 
sadors : — " How beautiful upon the mountains are the 
feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publish- 
eth peace ; that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God 
reigneth." * — And how speak the apostles themselves ? 
" We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the 
promise which was made of God unto the fathers, 
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, 
in that he hath raised up Jesus again. — Be it known 
unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through 
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of 
sins : and by him all that believe are justified from 

* Isa. Hi. 7. 



241 

all things, from which ye could not be justified by 
the law of Moses."* — " And I, brethren, when I 
came unto you, came not with excellency of speech 
or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony 
of God. For I determined not to know any thing 
among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." f 
— " Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gos- 
pel which I preached unto you, which also ye re- 
ceived, and wherein ye stand ; by which also ye are 
saved, if ye keep in memory" (or rather, hold fast) 
" what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed 
in vain. For / delivered unto you first of all, that 
which ye also received, how that Christ died for our 
sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was 
buried, and that he rose again the third day accord- 
ing to the Scriptures." % — " That which was from the 
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen 
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our 
hands have handled, of the Word of Life — that which 
we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that 
ye also may have fellowship with us ; and truly our 
fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus 
Christ. This, then, is the message, which we have 
heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, 
and in him is no darkness at all." § — In such terms 
do the apostles invariably speak of the Gospel, — as 

* Acts xiii. 32, 33; 38, 39. f l Cor - "• l > 2 - 

i 1 Cor. xv. 1—4. § 1 John i. 1, 3, 5. 

X 



242 

a testimony, a message, received by them from God, 
with a commission to declare it to men, — as, in a 
word, " a declaration of good things." — And no proof 
of the contrary can be more extraordinary than that 
which Barclay adduces — namely its being affirmed to 
be " the power of God unto salvation." For in what 
connexions is it that this affirmation is found? What 
is it that is affirmed to be " the power of God," 
and " the power of God unto salvation ?" It is the 
" testimony of Jesus" — the very u declaration of 
good things" contained in the Gospel. Thus in 
Rom. i. 15 — 17. " So, as much as in me is, I am 
ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome 
also : — for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; 
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth." Does not the very phrase " to 
every one that believeth," imply that there is some- 
thing believed? — and what is that but the testimony, 
the message, the declaration, delivered by the apos- 
tles ? What that was, Paul had previously specified, 
in regard to the facts of it — verses 1 — 4. " Paul, a 
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, sepa- 
rated unto the Gospel of God, (which he had pro- 
mised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures) 
concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was 
made of the seed of David according to the flesh, 
and declared the Son of God, with power, according 
to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the 



243 

dead :" — and he farther specifies its leading and most 
essential principle, — that which peculiarly constitutes 
it " the power of God unto salvation" — when he says 
of it — " For therein is the righteousness of God by 
faith revealed to faith ;" — phraseology, of which Bar- 
clay's anti-evangelical interpretation shall be duly 
noticed immediately. — Thus again, in 1 Cor. i. 18 ; 
22 — 24. " For the preaching of the cross is to them 
that perish foolishness ; but to us who are saved it is 
the power of God .*" — "we preach Christ crucified, 
unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks 
foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews 
and Greeks, Christ the power of God. and the wis- 
dom of God." — The simple testimony concerning a 
crucified Saviour proved the mightily efficient instru- 
ment, in accomplishing, what all the researches and 
theories of human wisdom, after a trial of four thou- 
sand years, had done nothing whatever to effect: — 
" For, after that, in the wisdom of God, the world 
by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the 
foolishness of preaching" (or the preaching of fool- 
ishness — i. e. of what was so esteemed by the wise of 
this world) " to save them that believe." 

3. You may possibly think I am hardly doing 
Barclay justice, when I represent him as adducing 
the gospel's being " the power of God unto salvation" 
in evidence of its being, in itself, something more 
than " a declaration of good things." Let us hear 
x2 



244 

him, then, a little further : — " Though the outward 
" declaration of the Gospel be taken sometimes for 
" the Gospel, yet it is but figuratively, and by a me- 
" tonymy. For, to speak properly, the Gospel is this 
" inward power and life, which preacheth glad tidings 
" in the hearts of all men, offering salvation unto 
" them, and seeking to redeem them from their ini- 
" quities !" — This is " confusion worse confounded.'* 
— According to prophets and apostles, the Gospel is 
a declaration of facts and principles ; the facts, of the 
birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Je- 
sus, — and the principles, involved in the representa- 
tive and substitutionary character sustained by him, 
and the ends for which, in this capacity, he lived, and 
died, and rose again. The angels proclaimed the 
Gospel, when they said, " Behold, we bring you glad 
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people; for 
unto you is born this day in the city of David, a 
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." — The Saviour, 
born in Bethlehem, bled and died on Calvary, " fin- 
ishing the work which was given him to do ;" — and 
was raised from the dead, in testimony of the divine 
satisfaction in that work. When the apostle speaks 
of the Gospel, — the declaration delivered by him and 
others, respecting a dying and rising Saviour, — as 
t; the power of God" — " the power of God unto sal- 
vation," he is manifestly stating not what the Gospel 
is, but what the Gospel does, — not its nature or pri?i- 



245 

ciples, but its efficiency. It is by means of it that 
God is pleased to " save them that believe f and it 
is " the power of God," or God's mighty instrument, 
in effecting this salvation, — salvation from the guilt 
and from the power of sin. It " worketh effectually in 
them that believe/' — This is simple. But what have 
we in Barclay ? The most unaccountable inversion 
of thought that ever occupied a sane mind. Look at 
it. The Gospel is said by Paul to be " the power of 
God :" — " it is the power of God unto salvation.*' 
Mr Barclay, with the literality of a true papist, con- 
cludes, that, since the Gospel is the power of God, 
this power of God is the Gospel. The declaration, 
or testimony, respecting " Christ crucified" is called 
the Gospel only " by a metonymy;" " to speak pro- 
perly, the Gospel is this inward power and life : '' — 
that is, the Gospel is the energy which it exerts, — 
the Gospel is the life which it instrumentally imparts. 
Then we have this power, which is the Gospel, 
preaching the Gospel : — for, says Barclay, " it 
preacheth glad tidings in the hearts of all men;" 
and what is the Gospel — what the very meaning of 
the term — but glad tidings? And what are the glad 
tidings which are preached in the hearts of men by 
this " inward power and life ? " The answer is in 
the words which follow : — " offering salvation unto 
them, and seeking to redeem them from their iniqui- 
ties ! " — so that the animated and triumphant state- 
x 3 



246 

inent of the apostle, respecting the divine efficiency 
of the Gospel to the actual salvation of men, is re- 
duced to a mere offer of salvation, and a mere moral 
influence "seeking to redeem" them! — Is not this 
— " first last, and last first?" — instead of beginning 
with the offer and ending with the power, — begin- 
ning with the power and ending with the offer ! 
Truly, if this was all that Paul meant, he had little 
to boast of in behalf of his gospel, or of the divine 
wisdom by which it was devised. A power — a 
power divine — terminating in an offer of salvation ! 
— an " inward power," not actually redeeming, but 
" seeking to redeem !" — and with what wonderful 
efficiency, let the whole heathen world bear witness. 
But, although offering and seeking were all that Bar- 
clay had to claim in behalf of his " inward light,'' 
they were not all that Paul had to claim in behalf of 
his gospel ; and the contrast is sufficient evidence, 
that the inward light of Barclay is not the gospel of 
Paul. 

4. There are some criticisms, which it is difficult 
to refute, because of the very palpability of their 
unsoundness. We feel, in attempting to meet them, 
that we are not only letting down the dignity of cri- 
tical science, but offering an affront to the under- 
standings of our readers or hearers, in the implied 
supposition of their needing to have the unsoundness 
exposed. I cannot think the observation too severe 



247 

in application to the criticism which makes the apos- 
tle say that the Gospel was " preached in every 
creature which is under heaven 1" — This is another 
specimen of literal interpretation, which could never 
have been adopted except under the prepossessing 
influence of a previously assumed hypothesis. What- 
ever be the true principle on which the universal 
terms employed by the apostle are to be explained 
(of which by and by) I would only put the question 
to the candour of any of you who have paid atten- 
tion to the language of the New Testament, whether, 
when he speaks of the gospel being "preached" — 
that is, published — proclaimed, — he had at all in his 
mind the silent, secret, individual suggestions of the 
t; inward light ?" When he speaks of preaching, 
does he not invariably mean the declaration, in God's 
name, by his commissioned ministers, of gospel facts 
and gospel principles ? Can any passage be found 
in his writings in which it has any other sense, or 
from which it can be inferred that he considered 
every man on earth as having a preacher of the gos- 
pel within himself? Had that been true, then the 
gospel must have been preached in the Colossians, 
before it was preached to them. But the entire 
strain in which he writes shows us, that he considered 
them as having known nothing of the Gospel, till in 
providence, it " came to them," by the labours of its 
ministers, — till " the day they heard it, and knew the 



248 

grace of God in truth/' through the instrumentality 
of those who " went every where preaching the 
word ;" and of whom the apostle specifies one by 
name — " As ye also learned of Epaphras, our dear 
fellow-servant, who is for you a faithful minister of 
Christ." — Had it been true, moreover, we might well 
ask what was Paul about? What was the use of all 
his multiplied and indefatigable labours ? He was 
busily preaching to men that which had already been 
preached in them ; — and, since the inward is superior 
to the outward, coming through no medium, but di- 
rectly from the Spirit, — better preached than by 
himself! Yes; better, on Mr Barclay's own repre- 
sentation. The outward declaration, according to 
him, is called the gospel only by a metonym}' ; the 
" inward power and life" being the true and pro- 
per gospel. They had, therefore, the reality before ; 
and Paul brought them only the figure : — they had 
what, " speaking properly," was the gospel ; and by 
the preaching of the apostle they got only the meto- 
nymy : — they had the "inward power and life" in 
themselves ; and then, by Paul's ministry, came the 
declaration to the ear! — Was this, then, do you really 
think, what the apostle meant ? I appeal to his en- 
tire writings for the answer. I could quote passage 
after passage from each of his epistles, in proof that, 
in his language, preaching has invariably the sense I 
have assigned to it. I take one as a specimen ; and 



249 

I select it for this very reason, that Mr Barclay at* 
tempts to harmonize even it with his system ; and I 
am anxious to show you with what palpable perver- 
sion. The passage is Rom. x. 14 — IB. " How, then, 
shall they call on him in whom they have not be- 
lieved ? and how shall they believe in him of whom 
they have not heard ? and how shall they hear with- 
out a preacher ? and how shall they preach except 
they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful upon 
the mountains are the feet of them that preach the 
gospel of peace, that bring glad tidings of good 
things ! But they have not all obeyed the gospel 
(the glad tidings.) For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath 
believed our report ? So then faith cometh by hear- 
ing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, 
Have they not heard? Yes verily : their sound went 
into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the 
world." — Respecting this portion of Scripture, no- 
thing, as it seems to me, can be plainer than the fol- 
lowing positions. First, that the gospel of which he 
speaks, as believed by some and disbelieved by 
others, was the "testimony" or "glad tidings" de- 
livered to men by the ministry of himself and his 
fellow-ambassadors. He calls it, in verse 8, " the 
word of faith ichich ice preach." Secondly, that this 
testimony contained a declaration of facts, such as 
never were made known to men in general by any 
other description of ministry, or channel of commu- 



250 

nication ; — never by that which you denominate the 
14 inward light," or direct illumination of the Spirit. 
These facts are, especially, the death and resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ : — " if thou shalt confess with 
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine 
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved," verse 9 ; the fact of God's raising 
him from the dead implying, of course, the fact of 
his previous death. Thirdly, that in order to these 
facts, and the principles connected with them, being 
known and believed, it was necessary that preachers 
should be commissioned and accredited of God, so 
that the testimony declared might appear as coming 
from him, and resting on his authority — " How shall 
they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they 
preach except they be sent?" — that is, sent, or com- 
missioned, not by men, but by God. — I conceive the 
leading object of the apostle, in the passage, to be — 
to place the new or Gospel dispensation on an equa- 
lity, in regard to its divine authentication, with the ' 
old or legal dispensation ; that of the apostles, witli 
that of the prophets. The one must have its di- 
vinely accredited messengers, as well as the other. 
It must not be said of the preachers of the new 
covenant, " I have not sent these prophets, yet 
they ran ; I have not spoken to them, yet they 
prophesied." This seems the import of the ques- 
tion " How shall they preach except they be sent?" 



251 

They whose feet, upon the mountains, brought the 
" glad tidings of good things/' were ambassadors 
commissioned by Jehovah, and bearing his creden- 
tials, as the ancient prophets did. The subsequent 
verses, when correctly translated, are designed to 
confirm this sentiment. It should be noted, that the 
word rendered by our translators, in verse 17th, 
" hearing" is the same word which, in verse 16th, is 
translated " report." It is quite true, that " faith 
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;" 
that is, that the word of God must be preached be- 
fore it can be heard, and heard before it can be be- 
lieved : — nor do I deny, that this is in perfect har- 
mony with the spirit of the preceding context — 
" How shall they believe in him of whom they have not 
heard ? and how shall they hear without a preach- 
er?" The true rendering, however, appears rather 
to be, in harmony with the view just given of the 
apostle's design — " But they have not all obeyed the 
gospel; for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our 
report? So then, faith cometh by a report, and the 
report by the word — (that is, by the authority or 
command) — of God." This rendering makes no 
material difference on the meaning of the first clause ; 
inasmuch as the Report must necessarily be brought 
to the ear and heard, in order to its being believed. 
But in the second clause, it gives an interesting and 
important addition to the sense, — namely, that the 



252 

Report, by the hearing of which it is that faith com- 
eth, is published by the authority or command of 
God. This is all simple and consistent. Let us 
see how the passage is disposed of by Barclay : — 
" But the apostle Paul opens and illustrates this mat- 
" ter yet more, Rom. x. where he declares that the 
" word which he preached (now the word which he 
;i preached, and the gospel which he preached, and 
" whereof he was made a minister, is one and the 
66 same) ' is not far off, but nigh in the heart and in 
" the mouth:' which done, he frameth, as it were, the 
" objection of our adversaries in the 14th and 15th 
" verses — ' How shall they believe in him of whom 
" they have not heard ? and how shall they hear 
" without a preacher?' This he answers in the 18th 
" verse, saying, ; But I say, have they not heard ? 
" Yes, verily; their sound went into all the earth, and 
" their words unto the ends of the w 7 orld ;' insinuat- 
" ing that this divine preacher had sounded in the 
" ears and hearts of all men ; for of the outward 
" apostles that was not true, neither then, nor many 
" hundred years after; yea, for ought we know, there 
" may be yet great and spacious nations and king- 
" doms, that never have heard of Christ or his apos- 
" ties, as outwardly." * — " This divine preacher :" — 
that is the inward light ! Now, my friends, I must 

' Apology, page 71. 



253 

frankly confess to you, that I should feel it quite a 
hopeless task to argue with any man, who, in sober 
earnest, after admitting that " the word which Paul 
preached and the gospel which Paul preached, and 
whereof he was made a minister, is one and the same," 
can contend, that the preaching of this gospel, spoken 
of by the apostle, means the preaching of it, in the 
minds of mankind universally, by the " inward light." 
For observe : — if there be a difficulty in accounting for 
the universality of the expressions, as opposed to the 
fact that so many thousands and millions of mankind 
" have never heard of Christ or his apostles as out- 
wardly ;" the difficulty is not less which is involved 
in the assertion that the gospel preached by Paul is 
universally preached by the light within. Nay, the 
difficulty is still greater : — for, whereas, in the one 
case, it is denied that the gospel was actually preached 
by the apostles to all, — we feel ourselves warranted, 
distinctly to deny, in the other case, that this gospel 
is preached by the " light within" to any. We know 
how extensive, how general and indiscriminate, was 
the proclamation of the gospel by the apostles and 
other heralds of salvation : — but can one solitary in- 
stance be adduced of the " universal inward light" 
imparting to the human mind the knowledge of the 
facts, and principles, and promises of that gospel? 
To what man on earth has the " faithful saying and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 

Y 



254 

into the world to .save sinners," been made known 
by the inward light, independently of the written or 
preached word? In what heathen country has there 
ever been found, otherwise than as the result of mis- 
sionary embassies, the knowledge that " Christ died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he 
was buried, and that he rose again the third day ac- 
cording to the Scriptures ?" I repeat what I have 
said, that, whatever difficulty there may be in recon- 
ciling with fact the affirmed universality of the preach- 
ing of the Gospel in apostolic times, that difficulty is 
in no respect lessened by introducing, as a preacher, 
the " inward light ;" inasmuch as not an individual 
of those who did not receive the knowledge of the 
gospel by the external ministry of the servants of 
Christ, ever obtained that knowledge by the internal 
ministry of the light: — no, not one. The introduc- 
tion of this imaginary preacher makes no difference 
in the case whatever ; — unless any one will under- 
take to prove, that mankind universally have all along 
been in possession, before, and during, and since, the 
apostolic embassy, of " the knowledge of the only 
true God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent " 
a position, of which the successful proof would, at 
the same time, nullify the utility and the worth of 
that embassy, by showing that the blessing intended 
to be imparted by it was already possessed ! 

5. Of the correctness of the statement we have 



255 

made, that it is not the gospel of Christ that is made 
known by the " inward light," we have, alas ! mel- 
ancholy evidence in Mr Barclay's own representa- 
tion. Mark how it is, according to him, that the 
" inward power and life," preaching in every crea- 
ture, operates to salvation : — " Those," says he, " of 
" whom the apostle speaks had no outward gospel 
" preached to them ; so that it was by the inward 
" manifestation of the knowledge of God in them, 
" which is indeed the gospel preached in man, that 
" ' the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to 
M faith ;' that is, it reveals to the soul that which is 
"just, good, and righteous; and that, as the soul 
" receiveth it and believes, righteousness comes more 
" and more to be revealed, from one degree of faith 
" unto another." — Never, surely, was there a more 
flagrant misappropriation of evangelical terms to an 
anti-evangelical purpose. " The righteousness of 
God by faith,'' — " the righteousness of God revealed 
to faith" — are phrases of which the meaning cannot 
be misunderstood by the careful student of Paul's 
writings. They are used by him to designate that 
imputed righteousness, of which I have spoken at 
large in my last letter, — the righteousness provided 
by God for the justification of sinners ; — " even the 
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ, unto all, and upo?i all them that believe :" — 
the righteousness of which he says, in terms formerly 
y2 



256 

explained — " God hath made him who knew no sin to 
be sin for us, that we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in him;" — and which was the object of 
his own supreme desire — " Yea, doubtless, and I 
count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ; for whom I 
have suffered the loss of all things, and do count 
them but dung, that I may win Christ and be found 
in him ; not having mine own righteousness which is 
of the law, but that which is by the faith of Christ, 
even the righteousness which is of God by faith." — 
But, according to Barclay, and in harmony with his 
identification of two things so distinct in their nature 
as the blessings of justification and sanctification, — 
" the righteousness of God revealed to faith" is the 
discovery to the mind of " that which is just, good, 
and righteous," — in personal character and conduct ; 
a discovery which, in the following page, he identifies 
with " knowing by that inward law, and manifesta- 
tion of the knowledge of God in them, to distinguish 
betwixt good and evil!" — And this is the way in 
which, according to your standard authority, the 
" inward light" preaches the Gospel, — " preaches 
glad tidings in the hearts of all men,'' — preaches 
what Paul preached ! I at once deny this to be the 
Gospel at all ; and am verily persuaded, that the 
apostle of the Gentiles, the great inspired champion 
of justification by grace through faith, would have 



257 

u shaken his raiment/' and indignantly disowned the 
comment, as at utter variance with the doctrine it 
was meant to illustrate, and as dictated by another 
spirit than that which he had himself received. — 
There can be little difficulty, to be sure, in explain- 
ing universal terms when used respecting the disse- 
mination of the Gospel, — if we are allowed to con- 
sider the universal knowledge of that Gospel — " the 
very Gospel which Paul preached, and of which he 
was made a minister" — as resolvable into the same 
thing with a universal sense of right and wrong, or 
an acquaintance (and even that sadly partial) with 
the rule of duty. 

6. There remains to be noticed, in this extraordi- 
nary passage of the Apology, yet another singular 
instance of the " confounding of things that differ." 
He applies to the discoveries of the inward light, the 
terms which are employed by Paul with relation to 
the manifestation of Deity in his works : — " For 
" though, as the following verse saith, the outward 
" creation declares the power of God, yet that which 
" may be known of God is manifest within : by 
; ' which inward manifestation we are made capable 
" to see and discern the eternal power and Godhead 
" in the outward creation ; so, were it not for this 
" inward principle, we could no more understand the 
" invisible things of God by the outward visible crea- 
" tion, than a blind man can see and discern the va- 
y 3 



258 

" riety of shapes and colours, or judge of the beauty 
" of the outward creation. Therefore he saith, first, 
" that which may be known of God is manifest in 
" them ; and in and by that they may read and un- 
" derstand the power and Godhead in those things 
" that are outward and visible." — Let us analyse this 
a little. — 1. When the apostle says, " That which 
may be known of God is manifest in them, — for 
God hath showed it unto them ;" he immediately 
explains the meaning of its being " shown unto 
them" by adding — " For, since the creation of the 
world, the invisible things of God, even his eternal 
power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being under- 
stood by the things that are made : so that they are 
without excuse." This is the manifestation, or 
" showing," meant by the apostle. When, therefore, 
Barclay says — " Now that which may be known of 
God is known by the Gospel, which was manifest in 
them ;" — he not only misappropriates terms, — he 
misapprehends the entire strain and purport of the 
apostle's reasoning, and nullifies its conclusiveness. 
The object of the apostle manifestly is, to demon- 
strate the inexcusableness of the Heathen in their 
ignorance of God, notwithstanding the knowledge of 
Him originally possessed, and the clear manifesta- 
tions, subsisting amongst them, in endless variety, in 
all the works of his hands and ways of his providence ; 
their sinful alienation from God, as displayed in this 



259 

ignorance, and in the practical results of it afterwards 
enumerated ; and their consequent need of the mer- 
ciful provisions of the Gospel. So far is he from af- 
firming that they had the Gospel already, and the 
knowledge of God communicated by it ; that his pre- 
cise and exclusive aim, from the 18th verse of chap- 
ter i. to the 9th verse of chapter iii. is to establish the 
universal sinfulness and guilt of Gentiles and of Jews ; 
and, having established this point, he deduces from 
it, as to both, the impossibility of justification by 
works, and the necessity of the grace provided by 
the Gospel, — that grace, the exercise of which to 
sinners of mankind it was the grand object of the 
Redeemer's mediation to render consistent with the 
demands of the divine law, and the glor} T of the divine 
righteousness. — 2. Barclay speaks of the " inward 
manifestation" as indispensable to our at all per- 
ceiving and understanding the outward, — equally in- 
dispensable to our " seeing and discerning the eter- 
nal power and Godhead in the outward creation, '' — 
as sight is to the discernment of colour and beauty. 
If so, it follows, that the possession of this " inward 
manifestation'' is necessary to men's aecountable- 
ness for their ignorance of God, and to their being, 
what the apostle declares they were, " without ex- 
cuse." And what is this inward manifestation ? It 
is " the inward manifestation of the knowledge of 
God in them, which is indeed the Gospel preached 



260 

in man. 1 ' It comes, then, to this : — that the know- 
ledge of God, and the knowledge of him by the Gos- 
pel, is necessary to render the ignorance of him in- 
excusable ! — Nor is the case much mended, in regard 
to the common sense of it, when we are told that 
" those Gentiles, of whom the apostle speaks, knew 
by that inward law and manifestation of the know- 
ledge of God in them, to distinguish betwixt good 
and evil:" — for, taking this view of the " inward 
manifestation," what have we ? — Why, the know- 
ledge of God and of the conduct he requires of us, 
necessary to our being capable of discerning the out- 
ward evidences of his existence ! — Did I speak too 
strongly, when I said, that this " inward light" 
" leads to bewilder?" Here, as on some other oc- 
casions, it appears involving in inextricable perplexi- 
ty, and that too on points in themselves character- 
ized by their simplicity, — an otherwise sensible and 
acute mind ; confounding in it law and gospel, na- 
ture and grace ; misplacing the grounds of human 
responsibility ; and embarrassing with an anomalous 
intricacy the very simplest principles of evidence. 

Well, you may say ; be it so : — but still, after all 
you have said, the universal terms employed by the 
apostle remain unaccounted for. How is it, that he 
speaks of the Gospel as having been " preached to 
every creature which is under heaven,'' when, in 
point of fact, there were so many millions of the hu- 



261 

man race, who had not at the time, and who have not 
even yet, obtained the knowledge of it ? — I answer, 
first of all, that, whatever difficulty exists, it is not- 
diminished, although it may be shifted, by the intro- 
duction of your universal preacher, the light within ; 
inasmuch as, whatever this preacher taught, it never 
made known, to a single individual, a single fact, or 
a single principle, of that gospel which Paul repre- 
sents as having been preached to all. The introduc- 
tion, therefore, of the " inward light" brings the 
statement no nearer to an accordance with fact, — if 
the fact stated be indeed absolute universality. There 
is, in truth, no ground whatever, on which it can be 
so understood. To suppose the apostle to have 
meant this, at the very time when he was himself 
busily engaged in carrying the Gospel to new sta- 
tions, — in breaking up new ground for the seed of 
the word, — is to suppose him to write, not only with- 
out extraordinary inspiration, but without ordinary 
understanding. His own language is — u Yea, so 
have I strived to preach the Gospel, not where 
Christ was named, lest I should build upon another 
man's foundation ; but, as it is written, To whom he 
was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that have 
not heard shall understand," Rom. xv. 20, 21. And 
he was still in the indefatigable prosecution of the 
same work, when, three or four years after, he wrote 
his Epistle to the Colossians. His language, in 



262 

both his epistles, — and indeed in all of them, the ear- 
liest and the latest alike, — is the same as to the uni- 
versality of the proclamation of the Gospel ; than 
which we could not desire a clearer evidence that 
he did not intend it to be taken in its strict and li- 
teral acceptation. — I might avail myself of the fact, 
that, in ordinary practice, both in speech and in 
writing, phrases expressing universality are used in 
an indefinite or general sense, when the meaning 
intended to be conveyed is, not all without exception, 
but simply a large proportion, or, even more limited- 
ly, a great many. Thus, when it is said, Mat. iii. 
5, 6. that there went out to John the Baptist " Je- 
rusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round 
about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, 
confessing their sins," — no more is meant than, in 
the language of Luke, " the multitude that came 
forth to be baptized of him," Luke iii. 6. But, with- 
out insisting upon this, observe more particularly — 
1. The terms in which the commission, as given 
at different times to the apostles, expresses the ex- 
tent of their duty. Mark xvi. 15. " Go ye into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature? 
Matth. xxviii. 19. " Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations? Luke xxiv. 47. " That repentance and re- 
mission of sins should be preached in his name, 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Acts 
i. 8. " Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jeru- 



263 

salem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto 
the uttermost part of the earth? — Now, it will not 
surely be contended, that by the apostles personally, 
during their own lives, all this, in the strict accepta- 
tion of the terms, was to be done. If so, a commis- 
sion was given them, which it was not within the 
bounds of possibility for them to execute ; and they 
failed — necessarily failed — to fulfil their charge. 
But this would not be doing justice either to them 
or to their Master. He did not enjoin impossibili- 
ties ; nor were they unfaithful to their trust. The 
language must be understood, not of what they were 
personally to effect, but of the ultimate design^ in 
regard to the gospel. It expresses what Dr S. H. 
Cox happily calls " the catholic largeness of the new 
dispensation." 

2. Each of the different phrases, employed in the 
different forms of the commission, is used by the 
apostle Paul in stating the fact of its apostolic exe- 
cution. Thus in Col. i. 6. "Which is come unto 
you," (he speaks of " the word of the truth of the 
gospel,'") "as it is in all the world;" — Col. i. 23. 
" Which ye have heard, and which was preached to 
every creature which is under heaven : — Rom. xvi. 26. 
" But now is made manifest, and — according to the 
commandment of the everlasting God, made known 
to all nations for the obedience of faith :" — Rom. x. 
18. " Have they not heard? Yes, verily: their sound 



264 

went into all the earth, and their words to the €?ids 
of the world" — Now, if the phrases, when used in 
giving the commission, signified, and could signify, 
no more, in regard to the personal ministry of the 
apostles, than that they should proceed, in that min- 
istry, on the 'principle of universality, — that their field 
should be the world, — that they should proclaim the 
gospel, with which they were put in trust, to men of 
all nations indiscriminately, — making their aim, in 
harmony with the divine purpose, the evangelization 
of mankind ; — -then, when the same phrases are used, 
to express the execution of the commission, they 
ought to be interpreted on the same principle, as 
conveying no more than that they were acting up to 
the full spirit of the charge given them, — that, to 
the utmost limit of their personal ability, during their 
own span of life, they " made disciples of all nations," 
and st preached the gospel to every creature," — 
leaving the further prosecution of the same work, — 
the following out of the purpose of the crucified and 
glorified Redeemer, — to the pious and benevolent 
zeal of his ministers and people in after ages ; and, 
at the same time, that, even during the period of 
their own ministry, they had made rapid and widely 
extended advances. 

3. In harmony with this remark, it may be ob- 
served, that the very phraseology used in the com- 
mission, and in the record of its fulfilment, is em- 



265 

ployed on occasions when absolute or literal univer- 
sality is out of the question. Thus in Jer. xxvii. 7. 
it is said that " all nations " should be subject to the 
king of Babylon, and that God would punish every 
nation that refused to receive his yoke : — in Dan. ii. 
38, 39. the dominion of the same king of Babylon 
is represented as extending " wheresoever the children 
of men dwell;" and the third kingdom that was to 
arise after his (the Macedo-Grecian) as " bearing 
rute over all the earth :" — in Dan. iv. 22. the empire 
of the Babylonian monarch is described as reach- 
ing "to the end of the earth:" — in the decree of Cyrus, 
Ezra i. 2. that prince says, " The Lord God of hea- 
ven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth:" — 
in Math. xxiv. 9. our Lord tells his twelve apostles 
that they should be "bated of all nations for his 
name's sake;" yet they themselves could not be hated 
beyond the limits to which their ministry extended, 
— which affords a further proof of the general and 
undefined sense in which the terms of their commis- 
sion ought to be interpreted : — in Rev. xiv. 8. Baby- 
lon is said to have " made all nations to drink of the 
wine of the wrath of her fornication ;" and in chap, 
xviii. 23. "all nations" are affirmed to have been 
rt deceived by her sorceries:" — in Rom. xi. 12, 15. 
the apostle, speaking of the fall and rejection of the 
Jews, says — " If the fall of them be the riches of 
the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of 
z 



266 

the Gentiles, how much more their fulness !" — and — 
" If the casting away of them be the reconciling of 
the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life 
from the dead?" — This last is an important passage. 
It is a clear instance of " the world" being used for 
" the Gentiles ;" and that, not in the sense of abso- 
lute universality, but indefinitely : — for, had it been 
used in the sense of absolute universality, it is evi- 
dent that the effect expressed as arising from the 
"casting off" of the Jews would have been the great- 
est possible; so that the predicted effect of their "re- 
ception" or restoration, could not have gone beyond 
it; for what can go beyond absolute universality? — 
what can comprehend more than the whole ? No proof 
can be clearer than this, that, in the apostle's lan- 
guage, when the gospel is said to have " come in all 
the world," he is to be understood as speaking of 
the Gentiles in the same indefinite way — of men of 
all nations, indiscriminately, becoming partakers of 
its tidings and its blessings.* And in the other pas- 
sages cited, we have evidence equally satisfactory, 
that the phrases, " all nations," " all the earth," " the 
ends of the earth," " all the kingdoms of the earth," 

* I have avoided reference to other passages in which the 
word " World" occurs, because, though they might have served 
my purpose, the word so translated is not the same as that used 
in the apostolic commission, Mark xvi. 15. which is xotr^oi. 



267 

&c. are susceptible (and that is all we need) of the 
same indefinite application. 

In extending so much my observations on this 
subject, I have borne in mind that I am writing to 
Friends, with whom the universality of the terms, 
and the inconsistency of such universality with the 
literal fact as to the outward gospel, form together 
one of the main grounds for the introduction of the 
" inward light," as the only means of bringing the 
statement and the fact into harmony. But into lit- 
eral harmony it does not, in reality, bring them. It 
leaves the difficulty just where it found it. For I 
must again challenge all the Friends on earth to pro- 
duce an instance, in which this inward light, — this 
universal preacher, — has made known the gospel 
contained in the apostolic testimony, — has made it 
known, either in its facts or in its doctrines ; — a sin- 
gle instance, in which a sinner, independently of all 
outward means, has learned from it, that Jesus Christ 
" was delivered up for our offences, and raised again 
for our justification.'' And the sinner who has not 
learned this, has not learned the gospel. Even what- 
ever benefit he may be supposed indirectly to de- 
rive from it, under the new covenant system of 
mercy, still it cannot, without an unwarrantable abuse 
of terms, be spoken of as having been preached either 
to him or in him. 

Another reason for extending my observations on 
z2 



268 

Mr Barclay's commentary on the passage in the first 
chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, has been, 
that they have a bearing on the explanation of other 
texts which are referred to in support of the univer- 
sal inward light; — and more especially on what I 
may justly call your text of texts, — that which has 
been quoted as one of the main pillars of your system, 
by every Friend, from the days of George Fox to 
the present hour. — John i. 9. "that was the true 

LIGHT, WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COM- 
ETH into the world." — Allow me now a few ad- 
ditional observations on this text ; — a text to which 
all others may fairly be considered as, to such a de- 
gree, subordinate, that, if this be satisfactorily dis- 
posed of, there is not one of them that can stand for 
a moment in our way. 

Before proceeding to these, it may not be unsea- 
sonable to put you on your guard against a tendency 
of the mind, from which we are all at times, in danger, 
— the tendency, I mean, of the habitual use of parti- 
cular phraseology so to fix a certain sense of it in our 
thoughts, as to render it superlatively difficult to dis- 
lodge it. It is like drawing out a thread that crosses 
and re-crosses, in every possible direction, the entire 
texture of our system, and enters into every figure 
in the pattern. Here, I am persuaded, (you must 
excuse me for saying it, for the apprehension is found- 
ed in those natural tendencies which are common to 



269 

you with myself,) will be found to lie, with many of 
you, the principal hinderance to conviction. " The 
light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world," is a phrase which, since the very rise of your 
community, has been so appropriated to a certain 
sense, and in that sense has been so invariably used, 
in publications, in preaching, and in daily converse, 
that I have every allowance to make for the strong 
hold it must have taken of your minds, and the te- 
nacity of your predilections in its behalf. — I trust, at 
the same time, that, with regard to any critical stric- 
tures I may now offer on the passage, you will give 
me credit, for the bond fide conviction that they are 
founded in the law and usage of the original Greek, 
and supported by their analogy to the same evan- 
gelist's style of expression in other places, and are 
not, in any degree, invented to serve a purpose. — 
You will do me the further justice of taking them in 
connexion with my former general reasonings on the 
subject of the " inward light" — which it is impossible 
now to resume, — as well as with what has just been 
advanced on Col. i. 23. and Rom. x. 14 — 18. — and 
especially on the frequently restricted, or general and 
indefinite, use of universal terms. 

In our received version of John i. 6 — 10. there 

occur several supplements. Now, it will not be 

questioned by any critic, that, when a passage can 

be simply and literally rendered without such sup- 

z3 



270 

plements, the rendering is entitled to preference. If 
any one, then, acquainted with Greek, and with the 
peculiarities of this evangelist's style, will take up the 
original, and lay aside entirely the present punctua- 
tion, (in which, I need not tell you, there is no au- 
thority,) he will, I am persuaded, be satisfied, that 
the following is the correct rendering of the verses : 
— " There was a man sent from God (or sent forth 
by God) whose name was John. The same came 
for a testimony,* that he might bear witness concern- 
ing the light, that all through him might believe. 
He was not himself the light, but was to bear wit- 
ness concerning the light. The true light, which 
lighteth every man, coming into the world, was in 
the world, and the w ? orld was made by him, and the 
world knew him not."f 

* E/j /uagrvgiocv — I have rendered this literally : paprv^ia sig- 
nifies, not the witness, but the testimony delivered by the wit- 
ness. John came, to deliver a testimony, as immediately ex- 
plained in the next clause. — Probably, indeed, our translators 
used the word witness here in the sense of testimony ; since they 
have done so repeatedly elsewhere, and the word still retains its 
double meaning. See for examples, John v. 31 — 36. Titus i. 
13. 1 John v. 9, &c. 

f The words in the original are these, and are here pointed 
agreeably to the version of them in the text : — 6. Eysvsro «v^w- 
^«j a.'7n(TTaXfj(,tvo? <7Tclpcl hov, ovo/xoc ocurco lajavvvis. 7. Ouro$ n\fa\> 
ng /uaprvpiav, ha ftaorvprio"/) vngi rov <pcoro$, tvot, vravrzs vriffrtveojo-i 
l>i ocurou, 8. Ovtc nv ixuvo$ to $&>$, aXX' ha poipTv pr^n vrtgt tcu 
(p&jros yv. 9. To <pa$ to ak'/ifavou, o Qur^u vravra civfyojtfov, £%%o- 
uivov zi; tov xoo-pov, 10. sv too xoo-pu yv, x«< o H0<rt*a$ oi clvtcj 



271 

You will perceive, that (with a number of emi- 
nent critics,) I consider the words " coming into the 
world" as more naturally connected with the word 
Lights than with the word man. My chief reason 
for thinking so is, — not that, when connected with 
" every man," the words are pleonastic ; for it would 
be far from being a solitary instance of pleonasm in 
the style of this writer ; — besides that the pleonasm, 
in this instance, might be used to give particularity 
and emphasis to the " every man," strengthening the 
idea of its being without exception.* — My reason is 
rather, the correspondence of the words, when joined 
to " the true light" with the phraseology of this 
writer, on the same subject, at other times, and 

iyivzro, fccci o KOffpo; avrov oux zyvoj. — The placing of the r,v, 
which, according to the common punctuation, begins verse 9th, 
at the end of verse 8th, precludes the necessity both of the sup- 
plement " icas sent " in the eighth, and of the more anomalous 
supplement of the demonstrative pronoun " that " in the ninth ; 
and, at the same time, by furnishing a nominative to the verb 
" was" in the beginning of the tenth verse, clears the construc- 
tion of all embarrassment. I submit, too, whether the to%oftivov 
u$ rov xoc/xov, sv reo xoffftop >;v, — when connected with the to <$&>;, 
be not quite in accordance with the ordinary style of this evange- 
list. I grant, however, that the ig%ofA&vov may be joined with 
either avfyuzrov or <pa>s. The reasons for joining it with the lat- 
ter are assigned in the text. 

* The use of the phrase, in connexion with avfywrov, by the 
Rabbinical writers has also been pleaded in support of our au- 
thorized translation. No great stress, however, can be laid upon 
this. The idiom is certainly neither common in the scriptures, 
nor in classical authors. 



272 

with that of the sacred penmen in general. " Com- 
ing into the world" is a phrase of such frequent 
application to the Messiah, as to be almost a de- 
scriptive designation of him. " Then these men, 
when they had seen the miracle which Jesus did, 
said, This is, of a truth, that prophet that should 
come into the world" — " For judgment am I come 
into this world, that they who see not might see, 
and that they who see might be made blind :" — 
" She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou 
art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come 
into the world :" — "I came forth from the Father, 
and am come into the world; again I leave the world, 
and go to the Father :" — " To this end was I born, 
and for this cause came I into the world, that I should 
bear witness unto the truth :" — " This is a faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners:" — "Where- 
fore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacri- 
fice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast 
thou prepared me."* — And more particularly is it 
deserving of notice, that the phrase occurs in con- 
nexion with the same designation of the Messiah as 
that in John i. 9. " I am come a light into the world, 
that whosoever followeth me should not walk in dark- 
ness :" — " This is the condemnation, that light is 

* John vi. 14. ix. 39. xi. 27. xvi. 28. xviii. 37. 1 Tim. i. 
15. Heb. x. 5. 



273 

come into the world, and men loved darkness rather 
than light, because their deeds were evil."* — If you 
take these parallel passages together, you will see 
reason to think, with me, that the s^^s^v u$ *ov zorpov 
— the " coming into the world," was much more 
probably meant by John, in the text under consider- 
ation, to be connected with " the true light" than 
with the " every man." — I might quote, along with 
these, those places in which Jesus is spoken of as 
having been sent into the world ; that phrase being 
a precise counterpart to his coming into the world. 
But it is unnecessary. I may, however, add, that 
the phraseology before us in this text, — " The true 
Light — coming into the world, was in the world/' — 
that is, was in the world in this capacity or relation, 
— corresponds with the repeated language of our 
Lord himself, as put into his lips by the same evan- 
gelist : — " Then said Jesus to them again, I am the 
Light of the world :" — " As long as I am in the 
world, I am the light of the world." f — These consid- 
erations bring it, in my mind, if not to an absolute 
certainty, yet as near to a certainty as possible, that 
the translation proposed of John i. 9. is the correct 
one. 

But supposing this to be the case, you may allege, 
we have still the affirmation that this Light " lighteth 

* John xii. 46. iii. 19. f John viii. 12. ix. 4. 



274 

every man!' — " The term ' every man,' " you may 
be disposed to say, " is in itself very strong and pre- 
" cise. It denotes every individual man; and, since 
" there is nothing in the context to limit its signifi- 
" cation, it must be considered as signifying the whole 
"of mankind!'* — You must, however, be sensible, 
that the transference of the phrase " that cometh into 
the world" from this connexion to connexion with 
" the Light" takes off not a little from the emphasis 
with which the idea of universal individuality (if I 
may so express myself) is conveyed. I hope you 
will not be tempted by this consideration — or, if 
tempted, will not yield to the temptation — to resist 
the evidence by which the transference appears to 
be so clearly warranted, and, from attachment to 
your master principle, as well as from the force of 
habit, — the habit both of thought and speech, — to 
stickle for the old way. — "Every man" is, I grant 
you, a universal phrase. But that it is not, in the 
present instance, to be taken in the strict and literal 
sense of absolute universality, — as meaning every in- 
dividual of mankind, without exception, the following 
considerations may serve to prove ; and they will, at 
the same time, bring to the proof the above assump- 
tion of Mr Gurney, that " there is nothing in the 
context to limit its signification." 

* Joseph John Gurney. 



1. We have instances, in the style of this evan- 
gelist, of phrases employed in a general sense, — to 
signify what was the ordinary or prevailing fact ; 
which are so far from being without exception, that 
exceptions are mentioned by himself, even though 
with the appearance of contradiction. One of these 
occurs in the very verses that follow the text under 
consideration. " The true light — was in the world, 
and the world was made by him, and the world knew 
him not. He came unto his own, and his own re- 
ceived him not. But as many as received him, to 
them gave he power to become sons of God, even to 
them that believed on his name." — " The world knew 
him not" — " his own received him not/' The de- 
signations are universal, according to their respective 
subjects; — " the world" meaning mankind, and " his 
own" the 'people of the Jews, his " kindred according 
to the flesh." The remark I now make is not at all 
affected by the question, whether the verses relate to 
" the Word" in his divinely pre-existent state, or to 
" the Word made flesh." The remark is, that the de- 
signations are used indefinitely, as expressive of the 
general fact ; but not without exceptions. There were 
those in " the world,'' — there were those among " his 
own," who did know him, — who did receive him; for 
" to as many as received him, to them gave he power to 
become the sons of God." — We have another instance, 
of a similar kind, in chap. iii. 32, 33. " That which 



276 

he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth ; and no 
man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received 
his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." 
Here, it is obvious, the "no man'' (ouhi$, no one) is 
not to be understood literally and absolutely, but in 
the same indefinite or general sense — comparatively 
few. "Very few," says Mr Scott, " and, as it were, 
none, compared with the whole nation, received his 
testimony." — " No man," we might say, — " no one" 
" is in itself very strong and precise. It denotes no 
individual" Yet we see we should be mistaken in 
so understanding it. In John's phraseology, " No 
man receiveth his testimony" does not mean that 
every individual rejected it :— " the world knew him 
not" does not mean that none of the world knew him : 
" — his own received him not" does not mean that 
none of his own received him. 

2. The very phrase, in all its pointedness and pre- 
cision — Travroc uvfycotrov — is at times used with an obvi- 
ously limited application. So the apostle Paul em- 
ploys it, Col. i. 2. " Whom we preach, warning every 
man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we 
may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." — 
What means the apostle by this " very strong and 
precise' 7 phrase? Not surely, that, in point of fact, 
he actually warned and taught " every individual 
man T No : but that every man was embraced in 
his wishes, and every man faithfully warned and 



277 

taught whom he could, by any means, bring within 
the reach of his influence. — Yet it cannot be affirmed 
that, in this case, there is any thing " in the context 
to limit its application." The Apostle is speaking at 
the time of the universality of the gospel. He had 
used the very words which, we have seen, Barclay 
interprets as expressing its absolute and individual 
universality — representing it as " preached to every 
creature which is under heaven ;" and had then spo- 
ken of the " mystery" (or revealed secret) of its 
divinely purposed extension, in all its privileges and 
blessings, to the Gentiles. There is nothing, then, 
to limit the import of the " every man," but the ac- 
tually known and limited extent of the Apostle s min- 
istry. Why, then, should not the terms, in the text 
on which we are commenting, be understood with a 
similar limitation ? " There is nothing in the con- 
text to limit its application," says Mr Gurney. Sup- 
posing this were true, may not the same obvious 
principle of limitation find a legitimate place in this 
case as in the other? Should it not be understood as 
limited by the actual extent to which the light spoken 
of has shone ? — Do not say, my friends, that this is 
to beg the question, by assuming that it has actually 
shone only to a limited extent. — For observe — 

3. The only ground on which Friends can main- 
tain its universality is — its being an inivard, not an 
outward light]; and the only ground on which they 
2a 



278 

can maintain its being an inward light is its affirmed 
universality. It is a light, they say, which " lighteth 
every man :" — but the outward light of the Gospel 
does not lighten every man : — therefore the light 
spoken of cannot be the outward light of the Gospel, 
or Christ as the mere subject of the Gospel testi- 
mony ; it must be an inward light, — for in this sense 
only can it be possessed by all, — can it shine in all, 
— can it lighten all. — Now, this is to beg the ques- 
tion. We affirm, on the contrary, that the light 
spoken of in the passage is not an inward light, — 
that it is an outward light ; — that this is a plain mat- 
ter of fact ; and that in conformity with this ought 
the terms of universality, used regarding it, to be 
interpreted, The Light is Christ. It is a per- 
son ; distinguished from John, who " was not him- 
self the light, but was sent to bear witness of it :" — 
and we know to whom he bore his testimony, and 
assigned the honour. We have seen too, how Jesus 
appropriates the designation to himself: — "I am the 
light of the world ;" — " I am come a light into the 
world ;" — " As long as I am in the world, I am the 
light of the world." He was so, by the full and clear 
discoveries which it was the object of his mission to 
make, — and to make, not to the Jews alone but also 
to the Gentiles, — of truths which had been but par- 
tially and obscurely revealed to the one, and respect- 
ing which the other, during preceding ages, had lain 



279 

m the darkness of ignorance. It is true, that the 
Eternal Word had been the medium of Divine com- 
munications to men, in as far as these had been 
vouchsafed, from the beginning. But still, his per- 
sonal mission and ministry are represented as the 
period of illumination ; the period of which this same 
inspired evangelist says, " The darkness is past, and 
the true light now shineth." Hence the distinction 
between the "times past" as the times in which 
" God in sundry portions and in diverse manners 
spake unto the fathers by the prophets" and " these 
last days," in which He " hath spoken unto us by 
his Son!' Passages might be multiplied that speak 
of the superior light of divine discovery emanating 
from this point. " No man hath seen God at any 
time : the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom 
of the Father, he hath declared him :" — u And thou, 
child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest ; for 
thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, to prepare 
his ways ; to give knowledge of salvation to his peo- 
ple by the remission of sins ; through the tender 
mercies of our God, whereby the day-spring from on 
high hath visited us ; to give light to them that sat 
in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide 
our feet into the way of peace :" — " Be not thou, 
therefore, ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor 
of me his prisoner ; but be thou a partaker of the 
afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of 
2 a2 



280 r : 

God : who hath saved us, and called us with an holy 
calling, not according to our works, but according 
to his purpose and grace, which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before the world began ; but is now 
made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus 
Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought 
life and immortality to light through the gospel." * 
■ — The prophets had predicted the coming of Christ 
under the same image, as the rising of a light upon 
a world of darkness : — " The people that sat in dark- 
ness saw a great light ; and to them that sat in the 
region of the shadow of death light is sprung up." 
And in similar terms, the aged and devout Simeon, 
anticipating, with benevolent joy, the illumination of 
the world, as well as exulting in the honour put upon 
his own people in the birth of the infant Redeemer, 
and ultimately to arise to them from his mission and 
work, speaks of him as Jehovah's " salvation, which 
He had prepared before the face of all people, a light 
to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people 
Israel." — Such passages of Scripture evidently re- 
present Christ as a Light of discovery and manifesta- 
tion of truth, — making God known, — making salva- 
tion known, — making the way of peace known, — 
making life and immortality known, — with a clear- 
ness and a fulness with which they never had been 

* John i. 18. Luke i. 76—79. 2 Tim. i. 8—10. 



281 

made known before, even to those who had been 
favoured with divine revelation ; — and making them 
known to others, of whom it could not, or hardly 
could, be said that they had any previous knowledge 
of them whatever, — " darkness covering the earth, 
and gross darkness the people." — When Friends, 
then, speak of the " Christ within," and the " inward 
light," they use phraseology that is not at all in har- 
mony with these representations. They speak of a 
light which, instead of arising at a predicted period, 
to dispel the previous darkness, had been actually 
enjoyed by all mankind from the beginning ; and 
they speak, moreover, of a light, which, though thus 
possessed by all before and by all since the fulness 
of time, has in no one instance imparted to any mind 
a single discovery of that truth which Jesus Christ 
came to reveal, and the revelation of which it is that 
constitutes Him " the Light of the world." The 
" portion of the light of the Spirit of Christ" which, 
according to Mr Gurney, is imparted to every man, 
does not, most assuredly, and according to his own 
admissions, communicate to those who possess it any 
such discovery. How, then, can they, in any pro- 
priety of speech, be said to be " lighted" by the true 
Light, when, in point of fact, they are in utter- 
darkness with regard to what he came to reveal, and 
the revelation of which it is that, chiefly at least if 
not exclusively, obtains him the designation. If the 
2a 3 



282 

only principle on which the Friends can give con- 
sistency to the universal terms employed by the 
evangelist, is a principle which either, converting the 
Christ who died on Calvary into a mystical abstrac- 
tion, supposes a " Christ within" independently of 
all knowledge of the Christ without, — or assumes a 
" light within' imparted from Christ " the true 
Light," which leaves those who possess it in entire 
ignorance of Himself and of every truth which he 
came to make known to men, — I must be allowed 
to regard it as a principle altogether inadmissible in 
sound and rational interpretation, and involving diffi- 
culties incomparably greater than any with which 
they can show our explanation of such terms to be 
embarrassed. 

4. The representation of " every man that cometh 
into the world" as "lighted by the true Light;" — 
or, in other terms, (which in the phraseology of the 
Friends are equivalent) the representation of every 
man as having the Spirit of Christ, or as having Christ 
within — is at variance with the whole language of 
the Bible, and with not a few of its most explicit and 
pointed declarations. — First, it is out of harmony 
with the current language of Scripture, to speak of 
" every man that cometh into the world" as actually 
lighted by the true Light. In addition to the passages 
already quoted, which represent mankind as in dark- 
ness, multitudes more of a similar character might 



283 

be adduced. But allow me to request your attention 
to the statement in verse 5. of this same chapter — 
" The Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
comprehended it "not." On the precise import of the 
verb rendered u comprehended" I do not dwell. 
It is by some translated " apprehended," by others 
" admitted." The question I have to ask you is one 
which is unaffected by this point of verbal criticism. 
It is this : — if it be indeed true that the illumination 
diffused by the " True Light" is universal, — if every 
man is actually enlightened by it, and enlightened 
inwardly, — where and in whom is it that " the Light 
shineth in darkness ?" If the true light lighteth 
every man born into the world, then every man born 
into the world is in light ; none of all mankind are 
in darkness. But the very purpose of the Gospel is 
declared to be " to turn men from darkness to light:" 
— and believers are said to have been " once dark- 
ness" but now to be " light in the Lord," — " called 
out of darkness into God's marvellous light." When 
we regard Christ as the Light, and as shining by the 
dissemination of truth amidst the darkness of spirit- 
ual ignorance and depravity, the meaning of such 
language is plain. No one is at a loss to understand 
it. But the consistency and propriety of it are de- 
stroyed, when we are taught to believe that all men 
already have the light, — the light of Christ, — saving 
light, — the light of the very gospel which Paul 



284 

preached. To apply such terms to the heathen, is 
not only to burlesque the very name of light, — re- 
ducing it absolutely to nothing ; it is contrary to the 
entire style, on such subjects, of the divine word. — 
The same observation is true respecting the " Christ 
within/' If every man born into the world has 
Christ within him, how is it that the apostle speaks 
of those who had heard the Gospel from himself and 
his fellow-ministers, as having, previously to their 
receiving it, been " without Christ ?" — and how 
comes " Christ in them the hope of glory" to be 
their distinction from others who remained in unbe- 
lief? — What, too, are we to think of the affirmation 
that all have the Spirit of Christ, when our Lord 
himself, in promising his Spirit to his disciples, gives 
the promise with so special a restriction to them in 
contradistinction from the world,- — " even the Spirit 
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
seeth him not neither knoweth him ; but ye know 
him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall he in you ;' 
— and when the possession of his Spirit is pronounced 
the only sure evidence of vital union with himself, 
and the absence of his Spirit the evidence of the 
contrary — " Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, 
if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you : now 
if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
of his ?" If " a measure of the light of the Spirit 
of Christ" is given to every man, who are they who 



285 

have not his Spirit ? — " Because ye are sons, God 
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
crying, Abba, Father." If all have a measure of the 
Spirit of Christ, what becomes of this peculiarity 
and test of Sonship ? Is it to be found only in the 
degree of the divine communication ? If so, at what 
point in the scale is the evidence of Sonship to be 
fixed ? There is no hint of such restriction, either 
in this text or in any other. To have the Spirit, is 
to be a child of God; to be without the Spirit, is to be 
a child of the wicked one. " Hereby know we that 
we dwell in Him, and He in us, because he hath given 
us of his Spirit:" — " These are they who separate 
themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit" And to 
have the Spirit is to have the earnest of heaven ; the 
evidence of Sonship being the pledge of the paternal 
inheritance : — " Now he who stablisheth us with you 
in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God ; who hath 
also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in 
our hearts :" — " In whom also having believed, ye 
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise; which 
is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption 
of the purchased possession, to the praise of his 
glory." — Are all mankind, as the common partakers 
of Christ's Spirit, children of God and heirs of 
glory ? 

Few things have surprised me more than the use 
made by Friends of the words of the apostle Paul 



286 

in 1 Cor. xii. 7. " But the manifestation of the Spirit 
is given to every man to profit withal." This has 
been a favourite text with Friends from the begin- 
ning till now. Like John i. 9, it has been quoted 
by all their writers, so far as I am aware, from George 
Fox to the anonymous author of " Truth Vindicated." 
By this latter author it is still quoted, with the em- 
phasis of Italics upon every man. That " there can 
" be no higher rule than the Scriptures," he affirms, 
" is not what Christ taught, — is not what the apos- 
"tles taught, — is not what Fox, and Penn, and 
" Barclay, and Fisher taught : — no — they taught, 
'•'that Christ was * the way, the truth, and the life;' 
" — that ' no man cometh unto the Father but by the 
" Son ;' nor * knoweth him but he to whom the 
" Son will reveal him :' they taught, that Christ was 
" ' that Light which enlighteneth every man that 
" cometh into the world ;' and that ' a manifestation 
" of his blessed Spirit is given to every man to profit 
" withal. '*— I have found it very difficult to per- 



* Truth Vindicated — Second Edition, page 5. When, in an 
early part of these Letters, I referred to this Work, the refer- 
ence was to the First Edition, the second not having then ap- 
peared. — I take this opportunity of asking the author, with all 
seriousness, whether he intended the Preface to the second 
edition to be an evidence to his readers of his " having received, 
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God ?" I 
cannot bring myself to believe, that Friends in general can ap- 
prove of the temper of mind in which that Preface is written. 



287 

suade myself, that any man, of ordinary understand- 
ing, can look at the context in which these words 
stand, and for one moment retain the conviction, if 
he had it before, that they have any reference what- 
soever to mankind at large. It is no better than 
empty bluster, to talk about the necessity of taking 
divine declarations as we find them, and not laying 
the terms of them under restrictions of our own. 
We do take them as we find them. We do not lay 
them under restrictions of our own. It is an essen- 
tial and invariably admitted canon of all rational 
criticism, that universal terms are to be understood 
as limited by the subject or the persons spoken of. 
Those, therefore, who insist upon understanding 

There was not a little of the same spirit in the work itself. Was 
it under the influence of elation of mind at the success of his 
first edition, that in his Preface to the second the author has so 
far surpassed himself in this "bad eminence?" If he fancies 
himself entitled, as an inspired man, to use towards ministers 
and Christians of other denominations, who presume to differ 
from him, the same style of address that was used to the Scribes 
and Pharisees by Christ and his forerunner, or to Elymas the 
sorcerer by the apostle Paul, — he only furnishes an additional 
exemplification of the melancholy delusiveness of all such pre- 
tensions to inspiration. I will not farther characterise the 
spirit of this production ; because I could not apply to it the 
epithets by which alone it could be truly described, without 
seeming as if I had imbibed it myself: — which may God's own 
Spirit ever prevent ! — It appears to be a matter of dubiety 
whether the author be himself a Friend, — that is, a member 
of the Society. I hope he is not. He himself " does not feel 
at liberty " to resolve the doubt. 



288 

" every man'" as meaning every man of all mankind, 
bring themselves under obligation to show, that it is 
of all mankind the apostle is at the time speaking. 
Will any one attempt to show this? Not if he 
wishes to retain his credit for a sound mind. The 
limitation is not ours ; it is the apostle's own. He 
speaks, throughout the chapter, of " the Body of 
Christ" — that is, of the Church. He speaks of those 
who " by one Spirit had been all baptized into one 
body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or 
free ; and had been all made to drink into one Spirit." 
Does this description comprehend " the whole world" 
— the world that " lieth in the wicked one ?" — Here, 
then, is one limitation ; and a limitation quite suffi- 
cient for our purpose: — for even if "every man" 
were to be understood of every individual member of 
the collective body spoken of, it would still be exclu- 
sive of all others, and so nothing to the purpose as 
a proof of the absolute universality of the Spirit's 
" manifestation." But even this latitude of inter- 
pretation is wider than the occasion either requires or 
warrants. It is not of the ordinary saving influences 
of the Spirit the apostle is speaking ; — it is of what 
he himself denominates " spiritual gifts," — gifts 
which, in a sense still higher than the others, were 
supernatural, — which were, indeed, strictly and pro- 
perly, miraculous. Now, there is the clearest possi- 
ble evidence, that these were not possessed by every 



289 

individual member even of the collective body to 
whom the apostle writes. No one can doubt this 
who reads the chapter. That which the apostle 
intends to express in this particular verse is, not the 
universality of the " manifestation" of the Spirit, but 
the design for which it was given ; and the obvious 
meaning of his words is neither more nor less than 
that, in every instance of its bestowment, it was 
given " to profit withal," — that is, not for the pur- 
pose of self-display or personal aggrandizement, but 
for the edification of the church, and the advance- 
ment of the cause of truth. The sentiment is, not 
that "the manifestation of the Spirit was given to every 
man ;" but that in the case of every man to whom it 
was given, it was given for this end. — Nothing in lan- 
guage is more common than this mode of speech. 
Mr Newton is perfectly right in the example by 
which he illustrates it : — " The emphasis is on the 
" words to profit withal. If I were to say ' Riches 
" are given to every man to use aright,' I surely 
" should not be understood to mean that every man 
" in the world was rich." Certainly not ; but only 
that every man to whom riches are given has them 
bestowed upon him for their appropriate uses : — and 
the mode of expressing the sentiment would be un- 
objectionably correct. The interpretation put upon 
the words by Friends in general is one of the most 
extraordinary instances I have ever met with of sac- 
2 B 



290 

rificing sense to sound, — of wrenching words from 
the connexion in which they stand, and by which 
their true import ought to be determined, and affix- 
ing to them, in their insulated state, a meaning as 
foreign as possible to the writer's purpose, but suit- 
able to our own. Aware, however, of the power of 
custom, as already adverted to, in fastening such in- 
terpretations in the mind, I feel it necessary (I cer- 
tainly should not otherwise) to present you with one 
or two parallel cases, — cases in which the phrase 
" every man" has a similar limited meaning, — limited, 
not only to the particular body or community spoken 
of, but to a specific description of individuals belong- 
ing to it. — In the law of the Jubilee, Lev. xxv. 10. 
you find these words : — " And ye shall hallow the 
fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the 
land, unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a 
jubilee unto you ; and ye shall return every man 
unto his possession, and ye shall return every man 
unto his family." It would be just as reasonable to 
interpret the " every man" here as meaning every 
man of the whole human race, as it is to interpret 
it so in the words of the apostle now under examina- 
tion : — and yet it not only does not mean this, — it 
does not even mean every man of all Israel, — but 
only every man in the circumstances for which the 
law provided, — every man who was in servitude, 
every man who had been disinherited, every man 



291 

who had been alienated from his kindred. The 
apostle's words no more signify that " every man" in 
the world, or every man in the church, had " the 
manifestation of the Spirit," than these words sig- 
nify that every man in the world, or every man in 
Israel, was in one or other of the conditions men- 
tioned. — Take another example from Paul himself. 
It occurs in 1 Cor. iii. 5 — 13. " Who, then, is Paul, 
and who is Apollos, but ministers, by whom ye be- 
lieved, even as the Lord gave to every man :" — 
" Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one; 
and every man shall receive his own reward accord- 
ing to his own labour :" — " According to the grace 
of God given to me, as a wise master-builder, I have 
laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon : — 
but let every man take heed how he buildeth there- 
upon :" — " Every man's work shall be 'made mani- 
fest ; for the day shall declare it : — and the fire shall 
try every man's work, of what sort it is." — I need 
not say, that in these verses " every man" neither 
signifies every man of mankind, nor every man of 
the Christian church, but only every man of the min- 
istry of that church, and perhaps still more restrict- 
edly (at any rate with a speciality of reference to 
them) every man of those ministers who had been, 
who were, or who might be, engaged in building up 
the church at Corinth, of which he had himself laid 
the foundation. 

2 b 2 



292 

The author of " Truth Vindicated" affirms the 
apostolic doctrine to be, that " a manifestation of the 
blessed Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." 
In so quoting the apostle's words, he does not inten- 
tionally misquote them, but only writes them in the 
Quaker form under the power of Quaker habit. The 
use of the indefinite article — " a manifestation" — 
renders the statement more loose and general, and 
brings it more into conformity with Quaker sentiment, 
— taking off that definiteness of expression which 
confines the reference to some special mode or modes 
of the Spirit's influence. The apostle's own words 
are — " The manifestation of the Spirit;" and he 
specifies what he means by enumerating the various 
" spiritual gifts," or supernatural endowments, which 
then existed in the Christian church, — under desig- 
nations of which, I doubt not, each would be dis- 
tinctly understood then, though now, with regard to 
some of them, we can get no further than more or 
less plausible conjecture : — " For to one is given by 
the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word 
of knowledge by the same Spirit ; to another faith 
by the same Spirit ; to another the gifts of healing 
by the same Spirit ; to another the working of mir- 
acles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of 
spirits ; to another diverse kinds of tongues ; to an- 
other the interpretation of tongues: but all these 
worketh that one and the self-same spirit dividing to 



293 

every man severally as he will." This is " the ma- 
nifestation of the Spirit," as then subsisting, in his 
various miraculous powers ; and the important sen- 
timent is, — a sentiment requiring to be inculcated on 
the Corinthian church, where a strong tendency had 
discovered itself to a vain ostentation and abuse of 
their gifts, — that on whomsoever any one or more of 
these gifts were bestowed, according to the sovereign 
pleasure of the divine agent, he who received them 
was to consider them as conferred for the general good 
— " to profit withal." But what connexion this has 
with the notion of every man on earth having " a 
manifestation" — a portion — a measure — of the Holy 
Spirit, — /am unable, and I am not without the hope 
that you too may now be unable, to discern. 

5. I have only, then, to observe, in the last place, 
on John i. 9. that when " the true light which, com- 
ing into the world, was in the world" is represented 
as " lightening every man," the idea which the words 
are chiefly intended to convey appears to be that of 
universality of design. It is a light for all men ; for 
Gentile as well as for Jew. Christ is " the light of 
the world!" There is no appropriation of this light, 
as there was of the light of revelation before the ful- 
ness of time, to any one people, or to any one class 
or description of mankind. "Every man" is alike 
welcome to its illuminating, cheering, guiding, puri- 
fying influence. — There is another idea which is evi- 
2b 3 



294 

dently to be associated with this. It is the idea of 
exclusiveness. It is the light, — the true light; 
designations which are equivalent to its being the 
only light : — and the meaning is, not that every 
man without exception is actually enlightened by it, 
— but that every man who is enlightened, has his 
light from it alone. It is the only true, the only di- 
vine source of saving knowledge to men. — I present 
you with a case which, in the spirit of it at least if 
not in the letter, is parallel. In Rom. iii. 23, 24. 
the apostle says — " All have sinned and come short 
of the glory of God ; being justified freely by his 
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Je- 
sus." It will not be denied, that when he says " all 
have sinned," the universality expressed is absolute : 
— it relates to mankind, — to Jews and Gentiles alike; 
and admits of no exception. But when the apostle 
adds — " being justified freely by his grace," the 
absolute universality ceases ; else it would follow that 
all men are actually justified. There is an obvious 
transition from the universality of fact to the univer- 
sality of design. The fact is that " all have sinned ;" 
but the corresponding fact is, not that all are justi- 
fied, but that to all the ground of justification is the 
same; so that all who are justified are justified on 
that ground. The one is a universality without ex- 
ception ; the other a universality without difference. 
" The righteousness of God which is by faith of Je- 



295 

sus Christ" is accordingly represented in the pre- 
ceding verse as " unto all," (that is, in the Gospel 
proclamation and offer) and as " upon all them that 
believe" (that is, to their actual justification and 
acceptance with God;) there being "no difference" 
— no difference, as he elsewhere more fully expresses 
it, " between the Jew and the Greek, the same Lord 
over all being rich unto all that call upon him." 
And here, accordingly, on the same principle, he 
adds — " Is he the God of the Jews only ? Is he not 
also of the Gentiles ? Yes, of the Gentiles also : — • 
seeing it is one God, who shall justify the circum- 
cision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith ;" 
— Jew and Gentile in the same way ; — on the same 
ground, and through the same medium ; — the one 
and the other alike " by faith, without the deeds of 
law.'' — As the meaning of this passage, then, evi- 
dently is, that there is but one method of justifica- 
tion, — that this method is equally adapted and equally 
designed for Jews and Gentiles, — and that every one 
who is justified is "justified freely by God's grace, 
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ;" — 
so also is the meaning of the other — that Christ is 
the true and only Light, — that this Light is equally 
adapted and equally designed for Jews and Gentiles, 
— and that every man who is enlightened — truly and 
savingly enlightened — is enlightened from this one 
Light. 



296 

I hope you do not anticipate my dwelling upon 
other passages. If you do, I must disappoint you. 
I cannot bring myself to argue on the meaning of 
words and phrases and statements, when that mean- 
ing is so palpable that argument can only bewilder. 
In such cases, there is nothing more troublesome 
than to frame an argument ; and then, the very at- 
tempt to frame it unavoidably leads the reader to 
surmise the existence of difficulty where there is 
none. — For example, Mr Barclay, after having stated, 
amongst the points which may be " confidently af- 
firmed and clearly evinced, according to the testimony 
of the Holy Scripture? — " that God hath given to 
" every man, whether Jew or Gentile, Turk or Scy- 
«•' thian, Indian or Barbarian, of whatsoever nation, 
" country, or place, a certain day or time of visita- 
" tion ; during which day or time it is possible for 
" them to be saved, and to partake of the fruit of 
4 < Christ's death," — proceeds thus: — " Secondly, That 
" for this end God hath communicated and given unto 
" every man a measure of the light of his own Son, 
" a measure of grace, or a measure of the Spirit, 
" which the Scripture expresses by several names. 
" as sometimes the seed of the kingdom, Math. xiii. 
" 18, 19. the light that makes all things manifest, 
" Eph. v. 13. the word of God, Rom. x. 17. or 
" manifestation of the Spirit given to every man to 
" profit withal, 1 Cor. xii. 7. a talent, Math. xxv. 15. 



297 

" a little leaven, Math. xiii. 33. the gospel preached 
" in every creature, Col. i. 23."* — Now I have already 
adverted, at greater length than they were entitled 
to, to the interpretations put upon one or two of 
the passages where these expressions are used. But 
you must dispense with my setting about a formal 
proof, that the seed or word of the kingdom, the 
light that makes all things manifest, the word of God, 
the talent, the little leaven, in the places where they 
respectively occur, do not represent the " inward 
light." I should account this absolute trifling. The 
simple reading of each of the passages ought to be 
sufficient for the repudiation of a commentary so 
outrageously arbitrary ; a commentary which can 
find a sanction in your minds only from those asso- 
ciations which custom has connected with a peculiar 
phraseology, — a phraseology, it is to be feared, ori- 
ginating in the exigencies of a mystical and extra- 
vagant system, with which Scripture could not be 
brought into the appearance of harmon}' otherwise 
than by the perversion of its simplest language. You 
may think this severe. It is so. But I cannot help 
it. I do not pronounce the perversion wilful, in the 
sense of giving a different meaning in the book from 
that which, at the time, exists in the mind. What I 
mean is, that, a principle being once adopted, and 

* Apology, page 132. 



298 

obtaining favour and fixture in the mind, there is a 
natural and powerful tendency to interpret Scripture 
according to it ; to find it in many a place, where 
something else had always been found before; and, if 
the principle should have aught in it of mysticism, 
to attach its mystic import to many a term and many 
a phrase, which had never before suggested any thing 
but what was obvious and simple. It is thus that 
the light, the seed, the grace, the word, the Christ, 
the leaven, the talent, and various other terms, have 
come to possess, in the lips and in the minds of 
Friends, by the power of association, a meaning so 
different from that which they bear in the common 
vocabulary of Christians ; and the force of attach- 
ment to the principle from which this peculiarity of 
language arises, has many a time imparted to the 
veriest conceits of criticism, and crudities of interpre- 
tation, the aspect of ingenious originality and pro- 
found wisdom. I have thought, and thought again, 
on the passages above referred to, and others of a 
similar character, and have come to the deliberate 
conviction that the best way to dispose of them is, 
to leave them to your own judgment. Read them ; 
read them carefully and candidly ; read them with- 
out either Barclay's spectacles or mine ; read them 
only with minds divested of prepossession and preju- 
dice, and simply desiring an answer to the question 
What is truth ? — and I am persuaded that you will 



299 

find no difficulty. Instead of the imcard light, in 
any of its visionary and varying aspects, you will 
discover in them what is definite, substantial, and 
ever the same, — " the gospel of Jesus Christ," — the 
word preached by Himself and his apostles, — the 
word heard by men of all characters and all condi- 
tions, — -the various treatment experienced by it, — 
the various effects, in different characters, produced 
by it, — its gradual diffusion from a small and limited 
commencement, — its divine adaptation to the exi- 
gencies of all mankind, — the welcome which it holds 
out to all to receive its blessings, — its complete and 
permanent establishment, and final results. 

I must draw this letter to a close b}^ remarking, 
what appears to be too obvious to need remark, but 
what, notwithstanding, has marvellously escaped the 
discernment of Barclay, — the distinction between the 
object of faith and faith itself, Barclay writes as if 
he held that faith itself cannot be internal, unless the 
object of it be internal. He charges all who believe 
in an external Christ, as " confiding in an external 
barren faith ;" and, in the plenitude of his charity, 
vilifies the Calvinists as desiring to have " a Christ 
" to save them without any trouble, to destroy all 
" their enemies for them without them, and nothing" 
" or little within, and in the meanwhile to be at ease 
" to live in their sins secure !" — and he imputes the 
rejection of his " inward light" to the same cause 



300 

with that to which Christ authoritatively ascribes 
the rejection of himself and of the light of his doc- 
trine : — "When all is well examined," says he, " the 
" cause is plain ; it is because their deeds are evil, 
" that with one consent they reject this light." — It 
must surely, however, be manifest to you, that an 
external faith is a contradiction in terms. Christ 
may be outward ; the cross of Christ outward ; but 
faith in Christ, faith in the cross of Christ, can be 
nowhere else than in the mind and heart. And be- 
cause my faith regards an object that is extraneous 
to my own mind, it does not follow that it must be 
" barren," any more than that it is external. So far 
from its giving us ease in sin, and security amidst 
unsubdued enemies and lusts, it is the inward prin- 
ciple of an inward salvation, — a salvation from cor- 
rupt affections and desires, and from the love of this 
present world : — it is the victory by which the world 
is overcome; — it purifies the heart; it works by love, 
— by love to God, love to Christ, love to Christians, 
love to mankind. He who fancies he has the faith 
of the gospel, while his professed faith is not thus 
operative, " deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in 
him." The faith which we profess is, from the nature 
of its object, eminently fitted to produce such effects. 
It is the faith of the love of God who " spared not 
his own Son but freely gave him up for us all :" — it 
is the faith of " the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 



301 

who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, 
that we, through his poverty, might be made rich :" 
- — it is the faith of " the record, that God hath given 
to us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son." 
Believing this, we feel the full force of the appeals, 
addressed to the gratitude of the renewed heart — " I 
beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your persons a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable 
service:" — -"Ye are not your own; for ye are bought 
with a price : therefore glorify God, in your body 
and in your spirit, which are God's :" — " the love of 
Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that 
if one died for all, then were all dead ; — and that he 
died for all, that they who live should not henceforth 
live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for 
them, and rose again." — But according to Barclay, 
not only is faith itself in us, but the object of it is in 
us ; — and in us not merely after we have believed, — 
in the sense formerly adverted to, of its " dwelling 
in our hearts by faith" the object of principles and 
affections that are in us, — but in us previously to our 
believing, — in all men, whether they believe or not. 
The Christ on whom sinners are, by the gospel, called 
to believe, is, according to him, a Christ already in 
them. This is the doctrine in the promulgation of 
which in his own day he glories, as the grand pecu- 
liarity of Quakerism, and the only saving truth. 
2c 



302 

" From a sense of the blindness and ignorance that 
ci have come over Christendom it is, that we are led 
" and moved of the Lord" (such is his confident 
language) " so constantly and frequently to call all, 
" invite all, request all, to turn to the light in them, 
" to mind the light in them, to believe in Christ as 
" he is in them : and that in the name, power and 
' ' authority of the Lord, 1 ' — (is it an apostle that speaks ? ) 
" — not in school-arguments and distinctions, we do 
" charge and command them to lay aside their wis- 
" dom, to come down out of that proud, airy, brain- 
" knowledge, and to stop that mouth, how eloquent 
" soever to the worldly ear it may appear, and to be 
" silent, and sit down as in the dust, and to mind 
" the light of Christ in their own consciences," — &c. 
&c. — And was it, then, " proud, airy, brain-know- 
ledge" which Paul had, when he said, " Yea, doubt- 
" less, and I count all things but loss for the excel- 
" lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : 
" for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and 
" do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 
" and be found in him, not having mine own right- 
" eousness which is of the law, but that which is by 
" the faith of Christ, even the righteousness which is 
" of God by faith ?"— Who was " Christ Jesus his 
Lord," the knowledge of whom he thus prized as 
above all price ? Was it not the " Jesus of Nazareth 
whom he had persecuted ?" — was it not the Jesus to 



303 

whom the martyred Stephen, — when " Saul consented 
unto his death," " gave his voice against him, and 
kept the raiment of them that slew him," — had borne 
his testimonv as " standing at the right hand of 
God ?" — For whom was it that he u suffered the loss 
of all things ?" Was it not for that Jesus who had 
said M I will show him how many things he must 
suffer for my name's sake?" — Who was the Christ, 
in whose righteousness he desired to be found? — 
Was it not He who, at the time predicted by the 
prophet, appeared on earth, " to finish the transgres- 
sion, and to make an end of offerings for sin, and to 
make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in 
everlasting righteousness," — whose prophetic desig- 
nation was " Jehovah our righteousness," — and whom 
" God made sin for us, though he knew no sin. that 
we might be made the righteousness of God in him?" 
— And was not this the Jesus — this the Christ — this 
the Saviour — this the Lord whom he preached to 
others ? — preached, not with a " proud, airy, brain- 
knowledge," but with a knowledge that made him 
feel himself " less than the least of all saints ?" — 
preached, " not with wisdom of words," not with 
the artificial rhetoric of Greek or Roman schools, 
yet with all the eloquence of lips that were touched 
with the fire of God's altar ? Would Mr Barclay 
have " stopped that mouth ?" And yet it was to an 
outward Christ it bore its testimony ; — even to that 
2 c 2 



304 

Christ who was " made of a woman, made under the 
law," who died on Calvary, and who lives, and 
pleads, and reigns in heaven. Point me to one text 
in which this apostle directs unbelieving sinners to 
an inward Christ, — in which he speaks of Christ as 
being in any except believers. There is no such 
text. This apostle, like all the rest, delivered his 
testimony, presented the evidences of its truth, and 
called on sinners to believe it : — and when it was 
believed, then Christ was " in those who believed it 
the hope of glory :" — he u dwelt in their hearts by 
faith :" they trusted in him, they loved him, they fol- 
lowed him: having "received Christ Jesus the Lord, 
they walked in hiin." 

" Glory to God for ever !" exults this extraordi- 
nary man, in terms worthy of a better cause, " who 
" hath chosen us as first-fruits to himself in this day, 
" wherein he is arisen to plead with the nations, and 
" therefore hath sent us forth to preach this everlast- 
" ing Gospel unto all, Christ nigh to all, the light in 
" all, the seed sown in the hearts of all, that men 
" may come and apply their minds to it. And we 
" rejoice that we have been made to lay down our 
" wisdom and learning (such of us as have had some 
" of it) and our carnal reasoning, to learn of Jesus ; 
" and sit down at the feet of Jesus in our hearts, and 
" hear him, who there makes all things manifest, and 



305 

" reproves all things by his light, Eph. v. 13."* — 
Where is there any thing akin to this in the writ- 
ings of the apostles ? Where, in these writings, are 
sinners called upon to come and learn " the everlast- 
ing gospel" by "applying their minds" to alight 
already in them ? Where are they taught to " sit 
down at the feet of a Jesus in their hearts" and thus 
to receive saving instruction, not from God's word, 
but from within themselves ? What is this Christ 
within — this light within — this seed within — which 
" reproves all things, and makes all things manifest ?" 
What is the amount of knowledge, which, yourselves 
being judges, when the " swelling words" used in 
its eulogy are set aside, is actually derived from this 
" inward light" — this Jesus in the heart— -this divine 
teacher, that preaches in every creature ? — What 
does it teach — what does it preach ? In the terms 
of your own committee, in their dealings with the 
author of the Beacon, it is " the light by which the 
law of God is in measure made known to all ?ne?i."f 
— This is all. Barclay makes no more of it than 
your committee does. Their language accords with 
that of all your accredited writers. This is what 
Barclay makes of the " grain of mustard-seed," 
Math. xiii. 31, 32. which, says he, " though it be 

* Apology, page 179. 

f Correspondence between the Committee of the Yearly Meet- 
ing of Friends, and Isaac Crewdson, &c. page 27. 

2 c 3 



306 

" small in its appearance, and that it be hid in the 
" earthly part of man's heart ; yet therein is life and 
" salvation towards the sons of men wrapped up, 
" which comes to be revealed as they give way to 
"it." And, in terms as extraordinary as any in his 
book (and that is saying not a little) he proceeds 
thus to set forth the wonders of this " least of all 
seeds :" — " And in this seed, in the hearts of all 
" men, is the kingdom of God, as in capacity to be 
" produced, or rather exhibited according as it receives 
" depth, is nourished, and not choked. Hence Christ 
" saith, that the kingdom of God was in the very Pha- 
" risees, Luke xvii. 20, 21. who did oppose and resist 
" him, and were justly accounted as ' serpents, and a 
" generation of vipers/ Now the kingdom of God 
" could be no otherways in them than in a seed, even 
" as the thirty-fold and the hundred-fold is wrapt up 
" in a small seed, lying in a barren ground, which 
" springs not forth because it wants nourishment ; 
" and as the whole body of a great tree is wrapt up 
" potentially in the seed of the tree, and so is brought 
" forth in due season ; and as the capacity of a man 
" or woman is not only in a child, but even in the 
" very embryo; even so the kingdom of Jesus Christ, 
" yea Jesus Christ himself, Christ within who is the 
" hope of glory, and becometh wisdom, righteous- 
" ness, sanctification, and redemption, is in every 
" man's and woman's heart, in that little incorrupti- 



307 

" ble seed, ready to be brought forth as it is cher- 
" ished and received in the love of it. For there 
" can be no men worse than those rebellious and 
" unbelieving Pharisees were ; and yet this kingdom 
" was thus within them, and they were directed to 
" look for it there ; so, it is neither ? lo here ' nor * lo 
" there,' in this or the other observation, that this is 
" known, but as this seed of God in the heart is 
" minded and entertained."* 

I have called this a wonderful little seed. Is it not 
so ? It is that " by which the law of God is in 
measure made known unto all men ;" — that is, from 
which those who are destitute of divine revelation 
derive the little knowledge they manifest of the dif- 
ference between right and wrong, between good and 
evil. And yet in this little seed, this least of all 
seeds, there lie, potentially enfolded, all the myster- 
ies of the kingdom of God ; the everlasting Gospel 
in all its truths and blessings; wisdom, righteousness, 
sanctification, and redemption; Jesus Christ himself, 
and the hope of glory ! — so that the most ignorant 
heathen, and the very worst of human beings, has 
only to " mind and entertain this seed of God in his 
heart" — has only to attend to this light in his own 
mind — has only to " sit down at the feet of this 
Christ within him," — and all is his : — if he only 

* Apol. pages 176, 177. 



308 

• ; cherishes" this little seed, " hid in the earthly part 
of his heart," it will germinate, and unfold itself to 
all the fulness of evangelical knowledge, holiness, 
and blessing ! All the mysteries of the gospel king- 
dom are wrapped up in this sense of right and 
wrong, — this measure of the knowledge of God's 
law ! — Now, do you believe this ? can you believe 
this ? To me it appears as strange a mystery in the 
world of mind, as the doctrine of transubstantiation 
in the world of matter. Granting that, in nature, the 
seed contains in its germ the miniature of the future 
tree, — and that whatever is subsequently evolved was 
thus previously in the seed, — yet surely no seed can 
ever evolve that which it does not contain. How, then, 
can there ever be unfolded, from a seed that contains 
no more than " a measure of the knowledge of God's 
law," all the discoveries and all the effects of the 
Gospel? May you not as reasonably believe the 
body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ to be 
contained in the consecrated wafer? 

When Jesus says to the Pharisees, who asked him 
"when the kingdom of God should come" — "be- 
hold the kingdom of God is within you ;" the con- 
text shows that his object is to set before them the 
true nature of that kingdom, as a spiritual kingdom ; 
— a kingdom, not such as they, in common with 
their countrymen in general, were expecting, but 
one which had to do with human hearts, — subduing 



309 

them to God, bringing them into willing and holr 
subjection ; — a kingdom, of which the principles, and 
influences, and blessings, were specially internal. In 
the words used by him, therefore, he is not to be 
understood as stating a fact respecting the Pharisees, 
but as stating a fact respecting his kingdom. He tells 
them, that, while they were looking for something 
outward, — something " coming with observation," — 
that is, with external power and show, — they were 
looking for that which they should never find ; that 
all who found his kingdom should find it within them ; 
that if they themselves found it, it must be there, — in 
the power of its gracious principles in their hearts. — ■ 
I have no wish to rid myself of any difficulty by ren- 
dering the words as some do, " behold the kingdom 
of God is among you/' I hold by our authorized 
version as the true one. But nothing can be more 
extravagant, than either to identify, as Barclay does, 
the sense of right and wrong possessed by the hea- 
then, (howsoever communicated) with the discover- 
ies and principles of the New Testament kingdom, 
as revealed by Christ and his apostles ; — or to insist 
upon it that that kingdom, wrapt up in its embryo 
seed, was actually at the time in the hearts of those 
who are elsewhere likened to " whited sepulchres, 
beautiful outwardly, but within full of dead men's 
bones and all uncleanness," — in hearts that were 



310 

Ci full of hypocrisy and iniquity," of " extortion and 
excess !" 

The " seed," of which our Lord so frequently 
makes figurative use, is " the word of the kingdom," 
Math. xiii. 19. called in the parallel passage of 
Luke's gospel, "the word of God," Luke viii. 11. 
and, in the gospel by Mark, simply " the word," 
Mark iv. 14. " The sower soweth the word." — This 
seed was sown in the preaching of Christ himself, 
and of his apostles and other ministers ; — and it is 
still sown, in the preaching of all who publish the 
same truths. It found of old, and it still finds, vari- 
ous soils, and presents various results : — like seed, 
in the natural world, either taking no root at all, as 
on the trodden foot-path ; springing up with hasty 
but feeble and inefficient growth, and scorched 
immediately before the sun,— as on the thinly 
covered rock; presenting a fairer promise, but 
choked and rendered fruitless by the rankly-spring- 
ing thorns ; or, in the good ground, growing up, 
and bearing fruit, thirty, sixty, an hundred fold : — 
the first case representing those from whose minds 
"the wicked one" catches away the word, the in- 
stant it has found admission ; — the second, those 
whose inconsiderate profession, superficial and root- 
less, gives way at the first approach of difficulty and 
trial ; — the third, such as set out well, but become 
the victims of " the cares of this life, the deceitfulness 



311 

of riches, and the lusts of other things ;" — and the 
fourth the genuine subjects of the kingdom, in whose 
" good and honest hearts," rendered such by the in- 
fluence of the Divine Spirit, the word is retained, 
and fruit is brought forth with patience. — All this is 
simple and intelligible. The mystic little " seed," 
which exists, independently of the written or preach- 
ed word, " in every man's and woman's heart," and 
which requires only to be " cherished," — though 
with what kind of culture it is not easy to tell, — in 
order to bring out of it all the fulness of the Gos- 
pel, — is as far as possible from being so : — and I 
know not any one thing that has given occasion to a 
larger amount of the misappropriation and perversion 
of Scripture terms and Scripture figures, than this 
" seed,"— this "light" — this " Christ within;" — nor 
can I refer you to a more satisfactory exemplification 
of the truth of this, than to Barclay himself. 

In my next and last letter, I mean to consider the 
sentiments of Mr Gurney on " the perceptible influ- 
ence and guidance of the Spirit of Truth," along 
with some of their practical bearings. 
Meantime, believe me again, 

Yours respectfully, 

R. W. 



LETTER VIII. 

« ON THE PERCEPTIBLE INFLUENCE AND GUIDANCE 
OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH." 



Respected Friends, 

" The yearly committee," in their state- 
ment of objections to the Beacon, declare their con- 
viction, which I may presume, therefore, to be that 
of the Quaker body generally, that " the doctrine of 
the inward light is absolutely identical with the 
doctrine of the Spirit." — I was glad to find, from this 
authorized statement, that I had not gone too far, in 
the outset of these letters, when I pronounced the 
" inward light" to be the very vital principle of 
Quakerism ; and it has been under this conviction, 
that I have allotted to it so large a proportion of my 
strictures. At the same time, although the denial of 
the " inward light" might fairly be regarded as a 
denial of the doctrine of the Spirit in the sense in 
which that doctrine is held by Friends ; yet there are 
different departments of the same doctrine, and dif- 
ferent views under which it may be contemplated and 
discussed. All mankind, according to the Friends, 



313 

have "a portion of the light of the Spirit of Christ;" 
and they have this, as the result of Christ's media- 
tion. Now, it may be one question, how far this 
universal possession of the Spirit is capable of being 
maintained; and another question, how far, when the 
Spirit is possessed, his guidance and influence are 
direct and perceptible. The latter position, indeed, 
would appear hardly to admit of question, in those 
cases where there exists no external revelation, as the 
rule by which, when it is enjoyed, the Spirit may be 
supposed to impart his directions : — for, the light of 
nature, as usually understood, being by the Friends 
denied, — unless the influence and guidance of the 
Spirit, in the measure in which it is possessed, were 
direct and perceptible, it would, in such cases, amount 
to absolutely nothing. But the question still re- 
mains, how far the influence and guidance of the 
Spirit are direct and perceptible, in the case of those 
who are in actual possession of the written word ; — 
that is, as a little explanation will show, how far they 
are independent of that word, — It is to Mr Gurney's 
views on this question, with some of its practical 
bearings, that I now solicit your attention : and in 
discussing these, I take for my text-book the " Ob- 
servations" of that esteemed author, of which the 
third chapter is exclusively appropriated to this sub- 
ject. 

Having already considered, at great length, the 
2 D 



314 

doctrine of the Friends respecting " immediate reve- 
lation, '" — and having, on one occasion, alluded to the 
title of this letter, — (which is the same as the title of 
the chapter in Mr Gurney's work just referred to) — 
as only a modified form of designation for the same 
doctrine, I may seem to you as if I were about to 
retrace the ground I have already traversed. And 
so, to a certain extent, I am. I hinted, however, the 
possibility, when discussing Barclay's representations 
of this Quaker principle, that I might bring them 
into comparison with those of Mr Gurney. I now 
follow out this hint ; not, indeed, for the purpose of 
tracing, directly, either a parallelism or a contrast 
between the one and the other ; but for the sake of 
showing that even Mr Gurney's modified statements 
are such as cannot be maintained in consistency 
either with the Scriptures or with themselves ; — and 
still more, for the sake of presenting what appears 
to me to be the truth on this fundamental point in a 
clearer and more direct light than has yet, in these 
letters, been done, as well as of pointing out the 
pernicious tendency of the doctrine of " perceptible 
guidance" in some of its more obvious and avowed 
practical results. I foresee a little repetition here 
and there of sentiments already advanced in a dif- 
ferent form, which connexion may render unavoid- 
able, and which must find its vindication in the para- 
mount importance of the subject, — a subject which 



315 

may fairly be regarded as the hinge on which the 
whole system of Quakerism turns ; this " perceptible 
influence and guidance of the Spirit of truth" being 
not only pleaded for as the direct and ever-present 
rule of personal conduct, but appealed to in support 
of some modes of divine worship and in opposition 
to others, and invested with judicial authority in de- 
ciding controversies respecting Christian ordinances, 
— controversies which, in the apprehension of Chris- 
tians generally, can receive no satisfactory settlement 
but in an answer to the question " What saith the 
Scripture ?" 

In introducing this subject to the attention of his 
readers, Mr Gurney, in accordance with what has 
just been said, speaks of it as " an important doc- 
" trine of religion, which, although by no means 
" peculiar to Friends, is certainly promulgated among 
u them with remarkable earnestness, and which lies 
" at the root of all their particular views and prac- 
tices."* 

" The differences of sentiment which exist in the 
" church on this great subject," he continues, " have 
" respect, not to the question whether the Spirit does 
" or does not operate on the heart of man (for on this 
" question all true Christians are agreed;) butprinci- 
" pally, if not entirely, to the mode in which that Spirit 

* Observations, &c. page 74. close of Chap. 2. 
2d 2 



316 

Ci operates." — And he then proceeds to state the 
amount of the difference between other Christians 
and those of his own communion, in the following 
terms : — " On this point there appears to exist, 
" among the professors of Christianity, and even 
" among serious Christians, a considerable diversity 
" of opinion. Some persons conceive that the Spirit 
" of God does not influence the heart of man directly, 
" but only through the means of certain appointed 
" instruments; such as, the Holy Scriptures, and the 
" word preached. Many others, who allow the di- 
" rect and independent influences of the Spirit, and 
" deem them absolutely essential to the formation of 
" the Christian character, refuse to admit that they 
" are perceptible to the mind ; but consider them to 
" be hidden in their actions, and revealed only in 
" their fruits. Now with Friends (and probably with 
" many persons under other names) it is a leading 
'• principle in religion, that the work of the Holy 
" Spirit in the soul is not only immediate and direct, 
" but perceptible. We believe, that we are all fur- 
" nished with an inward Guide or Monitor 9 ivho 
" makes his voice known to us, and who, if faithfully 
" obeyed and closely followed, will infallibly conduct 
" us into true virtue and happiness, because he leads 
" us into a real conformity with the will of God" 

* Ibid, pages 75, 76. 






317 

I have marked this last sentence in Italics, because 
I am desirous that the statement contained in it 
should be specially noted. It is Mr Gurney's expla- 
nation of what he wishes to be understood as mean- 
ing by the " perceptible influence and guidance of 
the Spirit of Truth." — Let it be observed, then — 

In the first place, that such a statement goes far 
to a setting aside of the Scriptures as the Christian's 
rule and guide, or at least of the necessity of their 
counsel and direction. It seems as if it brought 
against the divine word a charge of felo de se, — 
adducing it in evidence of its authoritatively setting 
aside itself. Regarding the sentence as expressing 
the amount of the privilege of " perceptible influence 
and guidance" conceived by Mr Gurney to be enjoyed 
by New Testament believers, I take it in connexion 
with what he says, page 89. " That the perceptible 
" influence of the Spirit on the soul proceeds from 
" God, the Christian enjoys satisfactory evidence — 
"first, in the declarations of Scripture that such an 
" influence shall be bestowed upon him — and second- 
" ly, in the practical results into which it leads." — Of 
the latter branch of evidence I may speak again. It 
is to the former I at present refer. According to Mr 
Gurney, then, the Scriptures assure believers, that they 
are " all furnished with an inward Guide or Moni- 
" tor, who makes his voice known to them, and who, 
u if faithfully obeyed and closely followed, will infal- 
2 d 3 



318 

" libly conduct them into true virtue and happiness, 
" because he leads them into a real conformity with 
" the will of God." — Now, my question is, am I to 
understand this as meaning that the Scriptures, on 
the part of their Divine Author, promise a guidance 
that is independent of themselves ? Is it thus inde- 
pendent, or is it not ? If it be, then to what purpose 
the multiplied directions and admonitions of that 
blessed Book, as to principles, affections, desires, ac- 
tions, and words ? Why lay down so many laws, 
and urge an unceasing remembrance of them and 
attention to their prescriptions and prohibitions, and 
at the same time assure us of an inward guide by 
which laws are rendered needless, — a guide "infallibly 
conducting into virtue and happiness" all by whom 
it is " faithfully obeyed and closely followed ?" — 
When Mr Gurney says of this Guide — " he leads us 
into a real conformity with the will of God," — either 
he means the will of God abstractly, that is, simply 
as existing in the divine mind, — or he means the 
will of God as contained in the Scriptures. If he 
means the former, then the consequence just stated 
clearly follows ; that, namely, of the Scriptures, ac- 
cording to him, disowning their own necessity to the 
guidance of God's people. If he means the latter, 
then the Scriptures, after all, are the rule — the fun- 
damental and primary rule; for such a rule that 
must assuredly be, into conformity with which it is the 



319 

design and effect of the Spirit's agency to bring us. 
That which brings us into this conformity can never 
itself be the rule or canon. — A friend (let me sup- 
pose) who is familiarly and correctly versant in the 
law of the land, undertakes to be my director; and 
I surrender myself implicitly to his guidance, having 
a perfect confidence that he will, in no point, lead me 
astray. This friend does not, in these circumstances, 
become himself the primary rule. It is the Law that 
still holds this place, into conformity with which his 
directions bring me. It is not difficult, however, to 
perceive, that, in proportion to the measure of impli- 
cit faith with which I give myself up to the counsels 
of such a guide, will become my indifference about 
investigating the law, and obtaining an acquaintance 
with it, for myself. The same must be the tendency 
of the sentiment in regard to the study of the Holy 
Scriptures. If the Spirit dwelling in us is an inde- 
pendent Guide, we have but slender inducements to 
study with assiduity a rule, of which, with the higher 
and more immediate direction of an infallible Mo- 
nitor within, we cease to feel the necessity.- — It is 
for the excellent author on whose w r ords I am com- 
menting, to consider, how far the view he thus gives 
of the Spirit's " perceptible guidance" is in harmony 
with the sentiments he elsewhere expresses respecting 
the paramount authority of the Holy Scriptures. 
Secondly: The " perceptible influence'' of the 



320 

Spirit is not illustrated by Mr Gurney as relating to 
the discovery of truth, but exclusively, or almost ex- 
clusively, as relating to the direction of the life. 
Hence, when the Spirit — the Spirit of Christ of 
which " a measure is bestowed upon all mankind" — 
is spoken of as " Light," and as " making manifest," 
— what is it, according to Mr Gurney, that it does 
make manifest? " Since, then, the Spirit of Christ, 
" appearing in the soul of man, is light, it is plain 
" that this Spirit makes manifest — communicates an 
" actual moral sense — teaches what is right and what 
" is wrong, in a perceptible or intelligible manner." 
— The illustration of this general position imme- 
diately subjoined shows that this is the kind of guid- 
ance which he considers the indwelling Monitor as 
affording especially to the children of God: — " Thus 
" the psalmist prayed as follows : ' O send out thy 
" light and thy truth ; let them lead me ; let them 
" bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles." 
" The light and the truth for which he thus offered up 
" his petitions, could not be the written law, of which 
" he was already in possession — the expressions are 
" rather to be understood of the light of God's coun- 
" tenance and the truth revealed by his Spirit : and 
" these, according to the views of the psalmist, were 
'• at once perceptible and powerful ; for they were 
i; to lead him in the way of righteousness, and to 



321 

" bring him to the holy hill and tabernacles of God."* 
— I shall not inquire, whether David, when he prays 
for the " sending forth of God's light and truth," had 
reference to that immediate divine inspiration, of 
which, amongst those " holy men of God who spoke 
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit/' his psalms 
show him to have been so eminent a partaker : — nor 
whether there was any allusion to those supernatural 
ways in which the divine mind was then, not unfre- 
quently, indicated, and to which David, we know? 
on various occasions, had recourse ; such, for ex- 
ample, as the Urim and Thummim. — Setting these 
apart, I have only to ask, ought not the language of 
David on one occasion to be taken in connexion with 
his language on other occasions, and each to be in- 
terpreted in consistency with the other? Now to 
any who are familiar with the divine compositions of 
the " sweet singer of Israel," I need not say, with 
what frequency he speaks of God's word, under a 
variety of appropriate designations, as the chosen and 
constant rule of his conduct, and guide of bis life : 
" Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might 
not sin against thee :" — " Thy testimonies also are 
my delight, and my counsellors :" — " Thy word is a 
lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path :"' — 
" The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: 

* Observations, &c. page 77. 



322 

the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the 
simple : the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing 
the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, 
enlightening the eyes : the fear of the Lord is clean, 
enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are 
true, and righteous altogether. Moreover, by them 
is thy servant warned ; and in keeping of them there 
is great reward." * — When we find the psalmist speak- 
ing in such terms of the divine word, are we war- 
ranted in considering him, when he prays for God's 
light and truth to lead and guide him, as praying 
for a guidance independent of that word? Ought we 
not rather to interpret him consistently with himself, 
and understand the prayer as comprehensive of both? 
— as imploring such an illumination of his mind by 
God's Spirit as should impart a clear apprehension 
of God's truth, — an apprehension which might at 
once cheer his heart and direct his steps ? And may 
not the terms "thy ltght and thy truth," taken 
distinctively yet unitedly, be designed to express the 
very combination for which I contend ? 

The explanation of the Spirit's " perceptible in- 
fluence and guidance" as having a more immediate 
reference to duty than to knowledge, accords with 
the representation of the same matter given by Wil- 
liam Penn, as quoted formerly, pages 116, 117. — 

* Ps. cxix. 11, 24, 105; xix. 1— 11. 



323 

Yet it does not appear that Mr Gurney intends his 
language to be interpreted thus restrictively. For, 
in common with other Friends, he applies to all Chris- 
tians the promises, given by Christ to his apostles, 
of the Spirit to " bring all things to their remem- 
brance whatsoever he had said unto them," and to 
" guide them into all truth." I marvel at this. I 
do not marvel that common minds should satisfy 
themselves with a vague and indiscriminate use of 
terms; but I do marvel, that a mind of such per- 
spicacity and candour as Mr Gurney's should not 
better " discern things that differ." If the pas- 
sages referred to really contain a promise to all be- 
lievers equally with the apostles, does it not follow 
that all believers have their knowledge of divine truth 
in the same way in which the apostles had theirs? 
— and not only in the same way, but to the same 
extent, and in the same perfection ? — that they have 
it directly from the Spirit, and independently of 
written revelation ? — But I must not resume the dis- 
cussion of texts which have already been under re- 
view. See pages 85 — 93. — For the same reason, I 
must refrain from dwelling on 1 John ii. 20, 27, on 
which too Mr Gurney, like other Friends, lays much 
stress ; — representing it as expressing the fulfilment, 
in the experience of believers generally, of the pro- 
mises to the twelve apostles just referred to. I would 
appeal to MrGurneys candid judgment, — in addition 



324 

to what has been already said upon the passage in 
pages 63 — 66, — whether the "knowledge of all 
things" which is connected with the " unction from 
the Holy One" does not relate to the spiritual dis- 
cernment of what had been communicated to them 
by inspired men commissioned and accredited for 
this work? Besides the evidence of this formerly 
adduced, I would point him to verses 20 — 24 ; and 
especially to the last of these verses — "Let that there- 
fore abide in you which ye have heard from the be- 
ginning : if that which ye have heard from the be- 
ginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue 
in the Son and in the Father." Their having "heard 
it from the beginning" clearly refers to the delivery 
of the message of the gospel to them by its inspired 
ambassadors : compare chap. i. 1 — 5. Was not 
" the anointing," then, which " abode in them," and 
" taught them of all things, and was truth and no lie," 
that unction of the Holy Spirit by which there was 
imparted to their minds, with increasing clearness and 
fulness, the spiritual discernment of the excellence, and 
glory, and harmony, and divinity of all " those truths 
which were most surely believed among them?" — I 
readily grant that " they were not any longer to 
" depend on the teaching of their fellow -creatures :'' 
— but I deny that this can be understood as inclu- 
sive of the apostles. I deny it for two reasons : — in 
the first place, for one formerly assigned, that such 



325 

an interpretation would be inconsistent with the very 
act in which John was at the time engaged, — the act 
of teaching them. If they " needed not that any man 
should teach them" — in consequence of their hav- 
ing the knowledge of " all things" directly from the 
Spirit of God to themselves, — then why does he teach 
them ? — And, secondly, for this additional reason, 
that the teaching of the apostles was not human 
teaching, but divine. John himself accordingly, in 
the same Epistle (chap. iv. 6.) says, " We are of 
God : — he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is 
not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the 
spirit of truth and the spirit of error." The evidence 
of their " knowing God," then, was, not their hear- 
ing themselves, — that is, hearing the Spirit in them- 
selves, — but their hearing the apostles : — because, 
Jesus having said of them — " He that heareth you 
heareth me ; and he that heareth me heareth Him 
that sent me," — hearing them was hearing Christ 
and hearing the Father, — and depending on them 
was not depending on " fellow-creatures," but on 
God. — All this is in fine harmony with the language 
of our Lord in his intercessory prayer — John xvii. 
20. " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also who shall believe on me through their word!' 
It will not be questioned, I presume, that this prayer 
included all believers to the end of time. The tes- 
timony of the apostles, though not now uttered by 
2e 



326 

their lips, is still on record in their writings ; and to 
this hour it is "through their word" that sinners be- 
lieve. " Their word" contains the divine informa- 
tion, — the truth to be believed ; and " their word," 
read in the record, or preached by the lips of others, 
is the instrumental means of saving illumination and 
conversion, — while the Holy Spirit is the efficient 
agent in opening the understanding to see it in its 
real excellence, and the heart to receive it in the 
love of it. 

Jesus says of his followers, using the favourite and 
delightful image of the Shepherd and his Flock — 
" My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and 
they follow me :" — " and other sheep I have which 
are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they 
shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and 
one shepherd." — On these expressions Mr Gurney 
offers the following comment — " The disciples of 
" Jesus, who were gathered to him during his short 
" abode upon the earth, undoubtedly enjoyed the 
" privilege of being instructed by his outward voice; 
" but the voice of Christ which was afterwards to be 
" heard by his sheep, who were not of the Jewish 
" fold, and which is still heard by his faithful fol- 
" lowers, whom he ' leads in the way of righteous- 
" ness,' we may conclude to be the voice of his Spirit, 
" — a voice inwardly communicated to the soul of 



327 

" man."* — But why should we not " conclude" this 
voice to be the voice of Christ in his word ? Is not 
the true import of " hearing Christ's voice," obeying 
Christ's word? We are not, surely, destitute of his 
word, merely because we have lost his living voice. 
In the word of inspired truth, his voice speaks to us, 
and shall continue to speak, with divine authority, 
till the end of time. All who believe and obey that 
word " hear Christ's voice ;" hearing, to every per- 
son acquainted with the phraseology of Scripture, 
being familiarly synonymous with obeying. When 
the " voice from the excellent glory," which pro- 
nounced Jesus God's " beloved Son in whom He was 
well-pleased," added the command " Hear Him," 
the spirit of the command evidently was — Submit to 
his divinely recognised authority ; believe his word, 
and do his will. His word is in the Scriptures ; his 
will is in the Scriptures. The dictates of his Spirit 
are there. And to "hear him" is to believe as 
truth what is there revealed, and to practise as duty 
what is there commanded. 

Thirdly : While Mr Gurney affirms, respecting 
the "perceptible guidance of the Spirit" for which 
he pleads, that " if faithfully obeyed and closely fol- 
" lowed, it will infallibly conduct us into true virtue 
" and happiness, leading us into a real conformity 

* Observations, &c. pages 79, 80. 

2e2 



328 

" with the will of God,'> he at the same time admits 
to so great an extent the liableness of its professed 
possessors to illusion, as almost to annihilate its value 
by the doubt which it brings upon the question of its 
reality : " While it may be hoped," says he, " that 
" the spiritually-minded Christian will readily admit 
" the force of these scriptural evidences, and will 
" cheerfully embrace that profitable truth which they 
" so clearly unfold ; it is not to be forgotten that the 
" human imagination is very active and delusive, and 
" that persons who are superficial in religion, or who 
" are not sufficiently watchful, may sometimes mis- 
" take the unauthorized dictates of their own minds 
" for the voice of a divine and unerring guide. That 
" errors of this description have on many occasions 
" occurred, must be freely allowed ; and that, under 
" particular circumstances, they may probably con- 
" tinue to occur, will not be denied by those who 
" are sufficiently aware of the infirmity and deceit- 
" fulness of the heart of man. It appears, therefore, 
" on the one hand, that the inward illumination of 
" the Spirit of God is mercifully bestowed on us as 
" a perceptible guide to righteousness, and, on the 
" other hand, that we are exceedingly liable to be 
" led about by the dictates of our own imagination. 
" Such a view of the subject naturally leads us to 
" inquire, by what characteristics the voice of the 
" Lord's Spirit and that of the human imagination, 



329 

" in matters of religion, may be distinguished from 
" each other."* — This is strong language. The hu- 
man imagination is pronounced, with the emphasis 
of Italics, " very active and delusive ;" and the terms 
" sometimes," " many occasions," " exceedingly lia- 
ble/' &c. rise above each other, as if the conscious- 
ness of the risk of deception had magnified in the 
mind of the writer as he proceeded. But the lan- 
guage, though strong, is not too strong. There 
are few things, if any, that involve more numerous 
or more powerful tendencies to self-deception. — It 
must be obvious, even to the least considerate, that 
the present question relates not at all to the infalli- 
bility of the guidance when really possessed ; for, 
once admit the guidance to be that of the Spirit of 
God, and to doubt its being infallible becomes im- 
piety. To grant it divine, is to grant it unerring. 
But I have formerly had occasion to expose the 
strange oversight of Mr Barclay, in confounding two 
things so palpably distinct as the truth of what God 
reveals and the reality of the revelation — pages 101 
— 107. That " the true and undoubted revelation 
of God's Spirit is certain and infallible," is, as I have 
there shown, (or rather, I should say, stated — for to 
show it would be to demonstrate a truism) a propo- 
sition of no relevancy in the present controversy. 

* Observations, &c. page 82. 
2e 3 



330 

The sole question relates to the reality of the reve- 
lation ; — and this, Mr Barclay admits, " may be 
called in question." To assert the infallibility of the 
revelation when possessed, is to assert what is nothing 
to the purpose, so long as it is, at the same time, 
granted, that those who profess to have it may be 
mistaken. The observations then made are appli- 
cable, in their full spirit and force, to the representa- 
tions of Mr Gurney. Of what avail is it, to know 
that the Guide himself is infallible, when there is so 
much of fallibility as to the possession of his guid- 
ance ? In the written word, we have the recorded 
mind of the Spirit. A clear apprehension, and a 
full and ready acquaintance with this word, it is the 
duty of every Christian to seek ; and, while he en- 
deavours to follow its dictates, to look for divine in- 
fluence to preserve him from every perverting bias. 
But perceptible guidance^ if it be any thing at all that 
is peculiar to Quakerism, is guidance independent of 
the word ; the terms being only a gentler and more 
modified expression of what the old fathers of the 
system were wont to claim, as the privilege of New- 
Covenant believers, under the more unqualified title 
of immediate revelation. The question, therefore, 
comes to be, — if, in the subject himself of the sup- 
posed influence, there exist so many tendencies to 
self-deception, how is the reality to be determined ? 
Mr Gurney answers this question, and endeavours 



331 

to meet the difficulty which it involves, by a descrip- 
tion of the two influences — the genuine and the 
counterfeit — according to certain differential quali- 
ties by which they are to be distinguished. He 
first does this in general terms, and then more in 
detail. " The least reflection," he observes, " may 
" serve to convince us, that the two influences of 
" which I have spoken, the true guide and the false 
" guide, are in reality absolutely distinct, different, 
" and sometimes even opposite. The true guide is 
" -'the day-spring from on high,' and comes imme- 
" diately from God, in whom there is no mixture of 
" evil, and who is the original and unfailing source 
" of all good. The false guide is the creature of 
" human infirmity and misapprehension ; and fre- 
" quently the source from which it arises is positively 
" evil and corrupt. Those who are faithfully fol- 
" lowing the true guide are the dedicated children 
" of a holy God. Those who are following only the 
" false guide, have constructed for themselves an 
" unsound religion, and are mere enthusiasts. — As 
" the voice of the true shepherd and the voice of the 
" stranger are thus really distinct, and, in fact, op- 
" posed to one another ; so, I believe, the sincere 
" and humble Christian, who has been taught the 
" lesson of waiting upon God, and whose religion is 
" of no shallow character, will be enabled, by divine 
" grace, to discern the one from the other. He will 



332 

" find that they are clearly distinguished ; first, by 
" the mode of their operation ; and secondly, by the 
" fruits which they produce."* 

Now, what is thus said about the difference of the 
two influences may be all very true and very good. 
But Mr Gurney himself must at once be sensible, that 
the question is not about the difference of the influ- 
ences themselves, but about the means of distinguish- 
ing them ; and that to this question the latter part 
alone of what has just been cited is at all relevant. 
Before noticing, however, the two lines of distinc- 
tion, here. stated and subsequently illustrated, it may 
be remarked in general, that the very necessity of 
specifying various tests, by which, independently of 
the criterion of the written word, — the one guide is 
to be discerned from the other, — and tests, too, of 
which the correct application requires the experience 
of one who has " learned the lesson of waiting upon 
God," and " whose religion is of no shallow charac- 
ter," — should of itself be sufficient to show the ques- 
tionableness of the independent guidance contended 
for, — and contended for, not merely as the special 
attainment of advanced Christians, but as the com- 
mon privilege, under the New Covenant, of all be- 
lievers. It must not be forgotten, how many and 
how strong are the admitted causes of self-delusion 

* Observations, kc. pages S3, 84. 



333 

which, singly or unitedly, serve to hinder the correct 
application of the distinctive tests. — But let me no- 
tice the tests themselves. 

Fourthly: With regard to the first of the two, the 
mode of operation, it does appear to me, I confess, to be 
a very inadequate one. The illustration given of it is 
beautiful ; but T cannot allow the mere gratification of 
taste, or even the pleasing emotions of Christian feel- 
ing, to prevent me from analysing the test itself, and 
so to mislead me into an erroneous judgment. The 
test is substantially (for, however willing to do so, I 
cannot afford to quote by pages) — the difference be- 
tween mental restlessness and mental stillness ; — the 
violence, on the one hand, of the impulses of the 
imagination, the confusion and disquietude of mind 
in which they " lay hold of us," indicating sufficiently 
the predominance of self, — and, on the other hand, 
the quietness and gentleness of " the voice of Jesus 
in the heart," the calm and humble subjection of 
spirit to God in which the true guidance is obtained. 
— This is precisely one of those cases, (of which, in 
our present controversy, there are not a few,) which 
have in them a certain amount of truth, but still, not 
an amount sufficient for the purpose they are intro- 
duced to serve. Is it so, that the human imagination 
never operates deceitfully, excepting in seasons of 
peculiarly fervid and turbulent excitement? "It may 
" often," says MrGurney, " when applied to matters of 



334 

u religion, be described as working in the whirlwind." 
Granted. But does it never work except in the whirl- 
wind ? Are there no illusory lights — no ignes fatui 
— that ever mislead the contemplative and musing 
mind ? Have no errors ever been found in systems 
of quietism — no mystic hallucinations — no meditative 
aberrations from truth ? Has it not, in experience, 
been far otherwise ? And, Mr Gurney himself being 
judge, — differing, widely differing, as he does, on 
important principles, from the more ancient oracles 
of your community, — may not Quakerism itself be 
adduced as an exemplification of the untenableness 
of his own position? It will never hold, that the 
mere process of "getting still" is a thorough safe- 
guard against the intrusion of heretical thoughts, or 
even at times of the very wildest imaginations. A 
prolific fancy may hatch whole broods of errors, in 
all the calmness of contemplative incubation. — Has 
there never been a degree of illusory confidence pro- 
duced by the very stillness itself recommended as the 
posture of mind for genuine divine communications? 
Has no false assurance ever been engendered, re- 
specting particular views, by this very consideration 
— the assurance, that, because they were suggested 
in the prescribed stillness, they must be divine ? — 
There is taste and beauty in the allusion to the wind, 
and the earthquake, and the fire, and the still small 
voice, of Horeb : — and there is, what is far better, 



335 

the depth and tenderness of piety in the application 
of this allusion : — " When the pride of the heart is 
" laid low, when the activity of human reasoning is 
" quieted, when the soul is reduced to a state of 
" silent subjection in the presence of its Creator, then 
" is this ' still small voice* intelligibly heard, and the 
i{ word of the Lord, as it is inwardly revealed to us, 
" becomes ' a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto 
" our paths.' " But there is a claim involved in these 
words, of which, be it ever so humbly and devoutly 
made, I cannot admit the validity. I must deny, 
that it is " the word of the Lord, as inwardly re- 
vealed to us" that is to be " the light of our feet, 
and the lamp of our paths." This proceeds on the 
assumption of immediate revelation, — the assumption, 
that what is "inwardly revealed to us" possesses the 
same authority with what was revealed to God's "holy 
apostles and prophets by his Spirit :" — and, in order 
to its possessing the same authority, it must have 
the same certainty of its coming from God. Yet 
Mr Gurney will not venture to affirm this ; and in 
declining to affirm it, and admitting that the criterion 
prescribed is neither universal nor sure, he seems to 
me to surrender every thing in his " perceptible guid- 
ance" that is really distinctive of Quakerism : — " If, 
" however, there are persons (as I believe there are) 
" of real piety, who desire to follow the guidance of 
" their Lord and Master, and yet have not learned 



336 

" to distinguish, as they would wish to do, the in- 
" ternal manifestation of his Holy Spirit, let them 
" not be unprofitably discouraged. Let them rather 
" pursue their course in humble reliance on the mercy 
" of God; and let them cultivate the animating hope 
" that, as they are preserved in dedication to the 
" divine will, and grow in grace, they will gradually 
" become better acquainted with the word of the 
" Lord within them, and will be comforted to a 
" greater degree with the light of his countenance." 
■ — But in the meanwhile, what are they to do for a 
" light to their feet and a lamp to their paths ?" Are 
they to have none ? — or are they to have one that 
only glimmers uncertainly, and leaves them in the 
depression of despondency, or the irresolution of 
doubt ? Would it not be far better, and far more 
consistent, in Mr Gurney, — seeing '« the word of the 
Lord within" is thus uncertain, and exposed to so 
many occasions of hesitancy, to point all his fellow- 
christians at once to the word without, and to recom- 
mend the written record of accredited and ascer- 
tained inspiration, as the true and only light, — 
the sure guide to truth, to duty, and to happi- 
ness? 

Fifthly: With regard to the second of Mr Gurney's 
two tests, it can hardly fail to strike every reader of his 
work, how very near he approaches in it to the ordi- 



337 

nary statements of evangelical Christians* — I am not 
quite sure, indeed, whether I have a correct apprehen- 
sion of Mr Gurney's classification of Christians ac- 
cording to the views entertained by them on the sub- 
ject of the Spirit's influence. He says, as already 
quoted, — " Some persons conceive that the Spirit of 
" God does not influence the heart of man directly, 
" but only through the means of certain appointed 
" instruments ; such as, the Holy Scriptures, and the 
" word preached. Many others, who allow the di- 
" rect and independent influences of the Spirit, and 
" deem them absolutely essential to the formation of 
" the Christian character, refuse to admit that they 
" are perceptible to the mind ; but consider them to 
" be hidden in their actions, and revealed only in 
" their fruits." If by the former of these classes 
Mr Gurney means those who identify the influence 
of the Spirit with the influence of the word, and call 
the latter by the designation of the former, merely 
because the word has been given by the Spirit, — I 
cannot regard such persons as maintaining the 
doctrine of the Spirit's influence at all. They 
maintain, indeed, the inspiration of the word; but 
there, according to them, the agency of the Spirit 

* I use the designation, of course, merely for distinction's 
sake, — for there can be no Christian who is not evangelical, 
unless a man can be a Christian without being a believer of the 
gospel. 

2 F 



338 

terminates : inasmuch as, the word, though given 
by the Spirit's inspiration, is not the Spirit him- 
self; nor, consequently, the influence of the word 
the influence of the Spirit himself. — But if he 
means, that they who affirm the influence of the 
Spirit to be exerted " through the means of certain 
" appointed instruments, such as the Holy Scriptures 
" and the word preached," — that is, more briefly, 
that they who affirm the Spirit's influence to be by 
the word, do by such affirmation deny it to be di- 
rect, — I conceive him to be in a mistake. I refer 
you to what has already been briefly said on this 
point — pages 99 — 101. I cannot conceive of any 
influence of the Spirit, at all deserving of the desig- 
nation, that is not direct, — directly exerted, I mean, 
upon the minds and hearts of men. To say, at the 
same time, that it is by means of the word, is not at 
all inconsistent, as already shown. The influence is 
not upon the word, but upon the mind; but it is 
upon the mind, when the word has been, or is at the 
time, presented to it ; imparting, in a way which He 
who promises the influence admonishes us not to ex- 
pect clearly to understand, a spiritual discernment of 
the divine excellence of what had previously ap- 
peared foolishness, and so disposing to the cordial 
and grateful acceptance of what had before been re- 
jected with worldly-minded indifference, or with the 
antipathy of offended pride. It is not, then, the di- 



339 

rect influence of the Spirit that we question ; it is his 
independent influence. It is an influence independent 
of the word, — operating, that is, not upon the mind 
with or by the word, but upon the mind apart from or 
without the word. — Who the " many others" are, whom 
Mr Gurney distinguishes from the "some" that 
deny the direct influence of the Spirit, as "allowing 
" his direct and independent influences, and deeming 
" them absolutely essential to the formation of the 
" Christian character," though they " refuse to ad- 
" mit that they are perceptible to the mind,'' — I 
confess myself at a loss to know. I am inclined to 
think that, in this description, the terms " direct and 
independent" have inadvertently been used as, in their 
signification, nearly if not absolutely synonymous. 
They are not so, however. That influence may be di- 
rect which is not (in the sense already defined) inde- 
pendent. And I am not, I repeat, at present aware, 
of whom that numerous class of evangelical professors 
consists, by which the influences of the Spirit, inde- 
pendently of the written and preached word, are 
" deemed absolutely essential to the formation of the 
Christian character." The generally prevailing sen- 
timent is assuredly different : — that, in conversion, 
the truth is presented to the mind, in the written 
word, or by the ministrations of God's servants ; and 
that the Holy Spirit, operating by an influence upon 
the understanding and heart, of which the mode is to 
2 f 2 



340 

us a secret, imparts such a conviction of the need of 
salvation, and such a perception of the divine excel- 
lence and suitableness of the salvation which the 
gospel reveals, both in its nature and in its ground, 
as induces the immediate, grateful, and joyful ac- 
quiescence of the sinner in the proposed terms, — 
his humble acceptance of the offered blessings as 
" the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," — 
his penitential shame and sorrow for the past, — and 
his sincere desire and determination to " live hence- 
forward not unto himself, but unto him who died for 
him and who rose again" — to "glorify God in his 
body and in his spirit which are God's :" — and that, 
in progressive sanctification, the Spirit is still the 
Agent, working with divine efficiency; and the word, 
whether read, or heard, or embodied in symbolical 
ordinances, still the instrumental means. — The reality 
of the change, and the progress of the new life in the 
ioul, are evinced by corresponding fruits. And 
here is the point to which I referred, when I said 
that Mr Gurney's statements approach so very near 
to those of evangelical Christians in general. The 
second of his two tests, by which the genuine guid- 
ance of the Spirit and the false guidance of the hu- 
man imagination are to be distinguished, is — u the 
fruits which they 'produce:' 1 — and by these fruits we 
are to understand, not merely the inward effects ex- 
perienced in the soul, but the outward effects on the 



341 

conduct of the life. " Here,'' says Mr Gurney, re- 
ferring to " the outward conduct of the man," — 
" Here the difference between the fruits of two dis- 
u tinct and even opposite principles, becomes com- 
" pletely manifest." And he proceeds, in a way to 
which few Christians will be disposed to object, to 
point out the appropriate and distinctive indications 
of the one and of the other. Now, wherein con- 
sists the wide difference, between the sentiments of 
those who, according to Mr Gurney, consider the 
influences of the Holy Spirit to be " hidden in 
their action, and revealed only in their fruits," — 
and the view given by Mr Gurney himself, when 
he represents those influences as " perceptible" in- 
deed in their action, but, at the same time, the 
minds that are conscious of them, as subject in 
such a degree to various influences of an oppo- 
site description, — the deceptive influences of a 
carnal or an enthusiastic imagination, — as to bring 
their reality into reasonable question, and to render 
the application of certain practical tests necessary to 
their authentication ?— To my mind, I confess, the 
difference appears to be very minute, between an in- 
fluence, imperceptible in its immediate action, but of 
which the reality is manifested by its fruits, and an 
influence, professedly perceptible in its action, but of 
which the genuineness must be manifested by its 
fruits. They are both influences, of which the fruits 
2 f 3 



342 

are admitted to be the only unequivocal evidence. — 
u We may readily accede," says Mr Gurney, ' ; to 
" the principle laid down by Locke, that we can en- 
" tertain no reasonable confidence in any supposed 
" spiritual illumination, farther than as we are fur- 
" nished with evidence that it proceeds from God. 
" Now, that the perceptible influence of the Spirit 
" upon the soul proceeds from God, the Christian 
u enjoys satisfactory evidence — first in the declara- 
" tions of Scripture, that such an influence shall be 
" bestowed upon him, — and secondly in the practi- 
" cal results into which it leads. ' He that believeth 
" on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.' 
" He brings his own sensations to the test of expe- 
" rience. He knows the tree by its fruits"* — Sure- 
ly, if by the believer's " having the witness in him- 
self," we are to understand his " bringing his sensa- 
tions to the test of experience" — his " knowing the 
tree by its fruits," — the difference between Mr Gur- 
ney as a Quaker, and his fellow-christians of other 
denominations, is as far as may be from being insur- 
mountable. What the Quaker professes to be con- 
scious of is the direct influence of the Spirit : — what 
other Christians professes to be conscious of is the 
direct influence of truth: — but the latter acknow- 
ledge the Spirit's illumination as giving them rightly 

* Observations, &c. page 89. 



343 

to discern the truth, and the Spirit's subduing energy 
as disposing them to obey it ; while the former ac- 
knowledges that the influence of the Spirit, of which 
he is conscious, must, if genuine, be according to 
truth ; — and both the one consciousness and the 
other are admitted to be susceptible of illusion, and 
to require being tried by the criterion — the only un- 
equivocal one — of their practical results. 

I shall only add here, that when Mr Gurney 
in support of the principle maintained by him, of the 
direct intimations of the Spirit to the mind as " the 
main rule in life" — makes his appeal, to examples 
of individual friends, — he ought not to forget, how 
large a host of similar examples of Christian excel- 
lence can be mustered amongst those who profess to 
take for their "main rule in life," the written word 
of God, looking for the Spirit to incline them to fol- 
low its dictates, and to " lead them," by means of it. 
" in the way everlasting." — u Although discourage- 
" ment may often overtake us, through the miscon- 
* 6 duct of unsound brethren, my young friends, with 
" myself, have enjoyed many opportunities of watch- 
" ing the demeanour and conduct of experienced 
" persons, who profess that obedience to the dictates 
" of the Spirit of Truth, in the soul, is their main 
" rule in life; and who, by a long course of patience 
" and self-denial, have fully evinced the sincerity of 
** their profession. Now, we are certainly well 



344 

" aware, and we need not fear to acknowledge, that 
M the character and deportment of such persons are 
u distinguished for sobriety and substantial excel- 
" lence, and that, however various may be their 
" situations, their talents, and their gifts, they resem- 
" ble one another in this main characteristic — that 
" they are fulfilling the law of love, and living a life of 
" piety and usefulness."* — Now, mutatis mutandis — 
or rather, I should say, mutato mutando, for there is 
but a single alteration necessary — changing " the 
dictates of the Spirit of Truth in the souV to "the 
dictates of the Spirit of Truth in the word? — the 
same thing may be truly affirmed of many, in every 
evangelical body of Christian professors. But Mr 
Gurney, I trust, will not deem me impertinent if I 
put a question to him, respecting the excellent per- 
sons to whose characters he thus appeals. I might 
ask two, indeed. I might ask, whether these were 
not persons who had been early trained under 
the inculcated and exemplified influence of the law of 
tc love" and of the principles of piety and usefulness : 
— but the question which I am most solicitous to press, 
referring for the answer to his own knowledge and 
observation, is, whether they have not, in general 
if not even invariably, been persons who have been 
more than ordinarily conversant with the written 

* Observations, Sec. pages 87, 88. 



345 

word, the holy oracles of divine truth, — their minds 
familiar with their precious contents, and their spirits 
imbued with their peaceful and holy influence ; — and 
how far, therefore, while they professed to follow the 
immediate intimations of the Spirit, their exemplary 
characters were not moulded, even more than they 
might themselves be aware, and more than the support- 
ers of their system might be willing to perceive, by that 
very word to which they theoretically assigned an 
inferior place and a subordinate influence; — whether, 
in short, the secondary rule in theory, was not — - 
however reluctant the Friends may be to grant it — 
the primary rule in actual operation and guidance; 
— and whether, while theoretically differing from their 
fellow-christians, they were not, in a very great de- 
gree, in point of fact, practically one with them. 

6. In the observations with which Mr Gurney 
closes his chapter on " perceptible influence and 
guidance," — Christians of other denominations will 
not differ from him or from one another. They 
specify various " characteristics" of this guidance, — 
" way-marks" of distinction between the path of the 
Spirit of truth and that of the spirit of error. They 
relate to tenderness, contrition, and lowliness of 
heart ; — to the daily exercise of self-denial ; — to pro- 
gress in the perceptions and sensibilities of con- 
science ; — to correspondence between the law in the 
Book and the law in the heart ; — and to exactness, 



346 

comprehensiveness, unmixedness, of obedience to the 
divine will. — Were some of the observations carried 
out into practical detail, differences there would be ; 
but in regard to the great marks of divine influence 
laid down there can be none. That influence, ac- 
cording to Mr Gurney's own summing up of its prac- 
tical manifestations, " is ever found to lead to the 
" humiliation of men, and to the exaltation of Christ; 
" to the denial of self, and to the bearing of the cross ; 
" to the increase of moral and spiritual light; to the 
" confirmation and right application of the divine 
" law, as it is recorded in the Holy Scriptures ; and 
" to a very exact fulfilment of that law." * 

I wish you, however, specially to observe, that, in 
the illustration of one of these marks, Mr Gurney 
appears to me to suggest the precise principle of inter- 
pretation according to which all the passages relative 
to the influence, the guidance, the witness of the 
Spirit ought to be explained. I refer to Observation 
fourth : — " Since the inward manifestations of divine 
" light in the soul, if attended to, lead invariably into 
" the practice of Christian graces; and since those 
" graces are clearly described and enjoined in the 
" Holy Scriptures, (especially in the New Testa- 
" ment,) it is plain that these two practical guides to 
" righteousness will ever be found in accordance with 

* Observations, &c. page 96. 



347 

M each other. The law written in the Book and the 
" law written on the heart have proceeded from the 
il same Author : the only standard of both of them 
" is the will of God ; and therefore they can never 
" fail to correspond.' ■ * — This is important truth ; and 
it may, with all safety, be granted. that 5 whensoever 
we find a correspondence between the heart and the 
book, — a correspondence, of course, evinced by a 
parallel correspondence between the heart and the 
life, — there the Spirit of God has been at work. 
These are effects, these are fruits, of his operation, 
which can have no other origin, and which are of a 
nature not to be mistaken. The question, however, 
would still remain, whether the change expressed by 
the promise " I will write my law in their inward 
parts," had been effected by the Spirit independently 
of the word of truth, or by means of it ; — and whe- 
ther that word was still to be, to the renewed sinner, 
" the light of his ket and the lamp of his path," or 
the immediate intimations of the Spirit to his own 
mind without it. — In pleading for the independent 
guidance of the Spirit, Mr Gurney adheres to one 
of the most objectionable articles of the Quaker sys- 
tem; an article, too, which, every reader of his works 
must be sensible, he finds it no easy matter to main- 
tain in full consistency with his modified sentiments 

* Observations, &c. pages 92, 93. 



348 

on other points, and especially with the high ground 
he occupies regarding the paramount authority of the 
Holy Scriptures. We have an exemplification of 
this in the very sentences I have just quoted, taken 
in connexion with what immediately follows. u The 
" law written in the Book, and the law written on 
" the heart, have . proceeded from the same Author : 
" — the standard of them both is the will of God: 
" and therefore they cannot fail to correspond. ,, 
Granted. The axiom of geometry, that things which 
are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, 
cannot be surer. But then, although the truth of 
the abstract proposition, that the law in the Book 
and the law in the heart have the divine will for their 
common standard, — it must be not less evident, that 
to us there is no such standard. Where have we 
any standard to which we can bring the law in the 
Booh ? When the Book has been ascertained (as it 
has been by many infallible proofs) to have been 
'•' given by inspiration of God," — then the law con- 
tained in it becomes to us the infallible record of his 
will ; — which is, in effect, the same with its being 
the standard of that will. We have no standard by 
which to try the law in the Book; but the law in the 
Book becomes the standard by which we must try 
every thing else that professes to be an intimation of 
the divine will. What follows? Why, that the law 
in the Book must be the standard of the law in the 



349 

heart. But if we had, in the sense in which true 
Friends contend for them, the direct, independent, per- 
ceptible, and infallible intimations of the Spirit to our 
own minds, not only should we have no need for such 
a standard, but we might even, with truth and safety, 
reverse the position, and make these intimations the 
standard of those on .record, — that is, make the law 
in the heart the standard of the law in the Book ! — 
But the truth is, the law in the heart and the law in 
the Book are not to be regarded as two distinct 
things, of which each is produced independently of 
the other, and which, when afterwards compared, are 
found to correspond. The law in the Book already 
exists ; and its existence is assumed in the promise 
— " I will put my law in their mind and write it in 
their heart." The promise relates to the law which 
God had given to Israel. He had given it on tables 
of stone; and the spirit and substance of the new 
covenant promise is, that it should be written " not on 
tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart;" 
— that is, that the Lord, by his Spirit, would impart 
a spiritual knowledge of it, in all its precepts, and 
dispositions of heart in conformity with its dictates. 
Mr Gurney is far from setting up the law in the 
heart as a standard for the law in the Book. On the 
contrary, he immediately subjoins : — " Scripture is a 
" divinely authorized test, by which we must try, not 
" only all our sentiments in matters of doctrine, but 
2 G 



350 

" all our notions and opinions respecting right and 
' ; wrong. * To the law and to the testimony; if they 
" speak not according to this rule, it is because there 
" is no light in them/ " But in this, I apprehend, 
Mr Gurney is hardly consistent with himself. If 
"we are all furnished" (independently of the word) 
" with an inward Guide and Monitor, who makes 
"his voice known to us, and who, if faithfully 
" obeyed and closely followed, will infallibly conduct 
" us into true virtue and happiness, because he leads 
" us into a real conformity with the will of God ;" — 
where is our need of such a test ? If the Spirit's 
voice is a known voice, and requires no more, in 
order to our being infallibly guided into all virtue, 
than being "faithfully obeyed and closely followed" 
a test appears to me a very nugatory thing. And 
who could have expected a writer, by whom the "per- 
ceptible guidance of the Spirit" is spoken of in terms 
so decided and strong, to fall into the ordinary phra- 
seology of other persons and other sects, and conde- 
scend to speak of " our notions and opinions respect- 
ing right and wrong?'* This is coming down to com- 
mon ground. Are the dictates, then, of this percep- 
tible and infallible guide, to be regarded, after all, as 
no more than " notions and opinions," which require, 
ere they can be adopted and followed, to be scrutin- 
ized by the standard of " the Law and the Testi- 
mony ?" — Expressions of a similar kind do at times 



351 

escape Mr Gurney, from which (without, I trust, 
incurring the charge of catching at little incidental 
slips, or making a man an offender for a word) I am 
constrained to infer, that his views respecting the rule 
of faith and duty are more in accordance with those 
of his brethren of other denominations than, as a 
Friend, he is willing to think; and that, in pleading, 
as he does, at once for the paramount authority of 
" the Law and the Testimony," and for the percep- 
tible and independent guidance of an infallible Mo- 
nitor, he pleads for tw r o things which cannot consist- 
ently be maintained together. The terms in which 
Mr Gurney invariably speaks of the Holy Scriptures, 
— and which it is my delight to find him using, — 
are such as to convert those employed by him re- 
specting the independent influence and guidance of 
the Holy Spirit into little more than w 7 ords without 
meaning. 

Nowhere does this more remarkably appear, than 
in his " Strictures on certain parts of an anonymous 
pamphlet entitled The Truth Vindicated," &c; which 
have just come into my hands. Most cordially do 
I concur with him in the censures — far from unduly 
severe — which he there bestows upon the author of 
that work, to whom I have before had occasion re- 
peatedly to advert. " The Truth Vindicated " cer- 
tainly, in some parts of it, makes as near approaches 
to absolute deism, as it is possible to do without an 
2g2 



£52 

open and unqualified disavowal of the inspiration and 
authority of the Scriptures. When I spoke of the 
author formerly* as a " staunch and honest Friend," 
and commended him, though not for his logic nor for 
his spirit, yet for his " manly and unblenching avowal 
of his principles," I would not be understood as in- 
sinuating a like disrespect for the sacred volume even 
amongst the ancient Quakers ; — though it has for- 
merly been shown that, in one or two points, Barclay 
himself is far from being clear of similar ground of 
reprehension ; — and though I cannot disguise the 
conviction, that the old Quaker doctrine, — the doc- 
trine of immediate inspiration as the common privilege 
of New Testament believers, — had the unavoidable 
tendency to the depreciation of the Scriptures, — a 
tendency which only discovers itself in " The Truth 
Vindicated" with somewhat more than its legitimate 
amount. My judgment and my feelings being in 
thorough accordance with those of Mr Gurney in all 
that he says of the paramount authority of the word 
of God as contained in the Volume of Revelation, I 
cannot see how he can be in harmony with himself, 
till he has thrown aside the remnant of Quaker doc- 
trine to which he still tenaciously clings ; — I mean 
this immediate revelation, under the modified desig- 
nation by which he has chosen to qualify and to re- 

* Page 23. 



353 

commend it. I cannot but fancy to myself the sur- 
prise and indignation with which some of the old 
fathers of Quakerism would be stirred, by the attempt 
to explain away, to so great an extent, their most 
favourite dogmas, and to fritter down the meaning of 
their phraseology, till there is hardly left a shred of 
distinction between them and the Christian world at 
large. — I frankly own, that the anonymous author of 
" The Truth Vindicated" does not appear to me — 
bating the unseemly scornfulness and the insufferable 
grossness and insolence of his style, — to go very far 
beyond the sequences that are fairly deducible from 
the doctrine of immediate inspiration as avowed in 
the writings of the older Friends ; and I believe there 
are not a few in the Body now, who conceive that 
author to have made a bold and consistent stand for 
the true original principles of Quakerism. I cannot 
but consider him, on the ground of these principles, 
as sufficiently warranted in saying — " Therefore, 
" when men assert that the writings of other men 
" who lived centuries ago, and wrote under the in- 
" fluence of the Holy Spirit, are 'a higher rule' to 
" me than the influence of the same Holy Spirit upon 
" my own mind ; I surely am not to be dissuaded by 
" an assertion, grounded upon no reason whatever, 
" that these admit of no comparison."* If the pre- 

* Truth Vindicated, 2d edit. p. 91* 

2g3 



354 

mises be granted, of the reality of immediate inspi- 
ration, is not this perfectly fair ? If the direct dic- 
tates of the Holy Spirit are indeed enjoyed now, 
why should not his modern dictates " admit of com- 
parison'* with his ancient dictates — the Spirit now, 
with the Spirit then ? This very word — "then" — 
when applied to the sacred volume, comprehends a 
vast period of time. Centuries and millenniums 
passed away between the writing of the first and the 
last books in the inspired canon : but we are not 
shocked at the idea of comparing the Spirit in John 
with the Spirit in Moses. If the Spirit be given 
still, in the form of immediate communication, of the 
mind and will of God, why should we be at all 
startled at the thought of comparing the Spirit in 
any New Testament believer with the Spirit in either 
Moses or John ? On the supposition of such com- 
munications being made, they ?nust be of the same 
authority ; for it is the authority of the same Spirit, 
— divine authority. — And this leads me to notice the 
manner in which Mr Gurney softens down, — in a 
way which he means for eulogy, but which they, I 
ween, would have disowned as insult, — the terms 
used of old by the fathers of Quakerism, respecting 
the primary and the secondary ride. After having 
discussed this point so much at large, I am not going 
to resume it. But when Mr Gurney alleges that the 
distinction was not, by the " early Friends," intended 



355 

11 to apply to the question of authority, but only to 
that of order and dignity" I cannot think he does 
these early Friends justice — By the Spirit, if they 
meant any thing at all distinctive of themselves from 
other professed Christians, — they meant the Spirit 
as imparted to their own minds. It was in this sense 
alone that the Spirit could be a rule at all. Now in 
this sense, the Spirit was not, in point of fact, first 
in order, — nor was it possible for them to think so, 
without thinking their own existence to have preced- 
ed that of apostles and prophets : and to fancy them 
to have meant by the term primary merely that the 
Spirit had a prior existence to the communications 
that proceeded from him, would be to impute to 
them, with the view of protecting them from the 
charge of heresy, a weakness absolutely infantile. 
If, in their use of it, the term had reference to order, 
there was, without question, associated with this the 
inferential notion of superiority. — And then, as to 
dignity — there was not surely more of dignity in the 
dictates of the Spirit to their own minds (which was 
what the}' meant when they called the Spirit a Rule) 
than in the dictates of the Spirit to prophets and 
apostles : — and if any should allege all they meant 
to have been, that the Holy Spirit, personally con- 
sidered, had more dignity than his communications, 
— they would make them mean, if the sentiment 
were analysed, neither more nor less than — nothing 



356 

at all : — for certainly, as a Rule, the Spirit, person- 
ally considered, was to them nothing. He was to 
them nothing, except as being in them, as their in- 
fallible monitor and guide, imparting to them his 
direct communications. It was these, therefore, 
that they regarded as the primary rule ; and still, 
beyond all controversy, with the idea of superior- 
ity involved in that of priority, — Mr Gurney has 
more good sense than to suppose them to have 
meant the Spirit personally, " They looked upon 
the influence of the Spirit as the primary rule," 
says he ; and he proceeds to assign their reasons 
for so regarding and so calling it. But with all 
my high estimation of Mr Gurney's integrity and 
candour, it is not without some little difficulty I can 
persuade myself of his being, in his own mind, fully 
convinced that these reasons would have been ho- 
mologated (to use a term of Scottish law) — that is, 
appropriated and acknowledged as their own, — by 
the " early Friends ;" inasmuch as they are reasons 
which involve nothing peculiar — unless it be in a 
small fraction of their import — but might obtain the 
concurrent assent of Christians universally : — " They 
" looked upon the influence of the Spirit as the 
" primary rule, because it is the very source of true 
" religious knowledge :" — who will question this ? — - 
w because it operated among men before the Scrip- 
" tures were written, and still operates, in a certain 



357 

" measure, where they are unknown :" — slightly 
qualified, who will question this ? — " and because it 
" is the originating power from which the Scriptures 
" themselves proceeded :" — and who, we may em- 
phatically say, will question this ? — I ask Mr Gur- 
ney, as an honest man — and such I firmly believe 
him to be — whether these were the points which 
were denied or questioned when Quakerism had its 
origin, — and whether these were the grounds on 
which its originators founded their system of distinc- 
tive principles and practices? — Was it not "the in- 
fluence of the Spirit" in themselves, that they re- 
garded as the 'primary rule? — and did they not 
mean, by calling it the primary rule, that this in- 
fluence was entitled to be first regarded and first 
obeyed? — and when they called the Scriptures a se- 
condary rule, did they not intend to place it in subor- 
dination to the primary, — to be attended to only in 
the second place, — its dictates being indirect, while 
those to themselves were immediate ? And I ask 
Mr Gurney farther, whether any genuine Friend, 
of the old school, would have taken into his lips, or 
recorded with his pen, the sentiment — " If we give 
up the Holy Scriptures as the test — the adequate 
and only written test — by which supposed revelations 
respecting either doctrine or practice must be tried, 
we at once yield ourselves a prey to wild and unre- 
strained enthusiasm?" — Could any opponent of Qua- 



358 

kerism desire stronger language than this, in re- 
gard to all pretensions to immediate revelation, — and 
the danger of trusting to any thing of the kind ? 
And is such an admission in harmony with Mr Gur- 
ney's own representations of " the inward Guide or 
" Monitor, who, if faithfully followed and closely 
" obeyed, leads infallibly into a real conformity with 
" the will of God ?" I am unable to reconcile the 
two representations. I believe the former — the ad- 
mission of the perilous tendency of trusting to " sup- 
posed revelations," to be, of the two, by much the 
nearer to truth ; and it is only, after all, a stronger 
and more unfettered expression of what Mr Gurney, 
with somewhat more of cautious discretion, states in 
his larger work, when he suggests some of the va- 
rious sources of illusion to which the professed pos- 
sessors of immediate Divine influence are exposed. — 
The views of this intelligent and highly gifted 
Friend respecting the authority of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, as the " ultimate appeal in every case of doubt 
" or controversy in relation to matters either of doc- 
" trine or of moral principle," are worthy of himself, 
and worthy of the Book of God, and such, in every 
respect, as must meet the approbation of Christians 
of all denominations : — " There lies no appeal from 
" it to any higher authority whatsoever ; for the sim- 
" plest and most powerful of all reasons — namely, 
11 that the authority of the declarations which God 



359 

" has made is the authority of God himself." But 
by his enlightened views of this subject, some modi- 
fication of the sentiments held and avowed by the 
older Quakers, respecting the direct communications 
of the Spirit to the souls of God's people now, was 
rendered indispensable. It is on the ground of 
these sentiments that both Dr Hancock and the 
author of " Truth Vindicated," go such unwarrant- 
able lengths in regard to dependence on immediate 
guidance. I say unwarrantable, when I speak of 
them in themselves ; but really, if the truth of the 
sentiments were assumed, I should be at a loss 
for a reason to prevent my going along with the 
former, when he says — "I cannot admit that the 
" Scriptures, divine and excellent as they are, and 
" blessed, I trust, as means auxiliary to salvation, to 
" thousands and millions, are to be placed above the 
" teaching of God's Holy Spirit by immediate reve- 
" latio?i;" — or with the latter, when, in addition to 
what has already been quoted, he says — " I cannot 
" therefore see how any higher rule can by possibii- 
" ity exist, than that by which we are led, and in 
" which we are to walk— even the blessed Spirit of 
" Christ" Such views as Mr Gurney exhibits of 
the paramount and ultimate and only authority of 
the divine oracles, are calculated to repress these 
< : great swelling words of vanity:" — but it maybe 
worth his while to consider, how far the salutary 



360 

tendency of his views on this point, will not, to a 
degree which he would himself lament, be counter- 
acted by the manner in which he still writes on the 
" perceptible guidance of the Spirit." 

There is one sentence of Mr Gurney's in the 
" Strictures" referred to, which requires only to be 
followed out, and separated from surrounding matter, 
to form a correct representation of the truth on this 
all-important subject — " That in order to a saving 
c - apprehension of the truths contained in the Sacred 
" Volume, the enlightening influence of the Holy 
" Ghost is absolutely indispensable."* O that Mr 
Gurney would but abide by the simple principle in- 
volved in these few words ; recognising the Holy 
Scriptures as the source of saving knowledge, and 
the Holy Spirit as the Author of spiritual illumina- 
tion in the soul, in order to the right discernment 
and believing acceptance of the truths which they 
reveal ! — The principle is in full concord with another 
passage from his pen, in his Essay on Love to God. 
He is speaking of the change necessary in sinful 
man, in order to his fitness for fellowship with God 
and for the joys of heaven. " In effecting this 
" blessed change," says he, " in the affections of 
" fallen man, the Holy Spirit makes use of the gos- 
" pel of our Lord Jesus Christ, as his grand appoint- 

* Strictures, &c. page 23. 



361 

w ed instrument. That gospel, written in the Holy 
" Scriptures, and preached by the Lord's messen- 
" gers, is a spiritual weapon of heavenly mould ; 
" and, when wielded by a Divine hand, it penetrates 
" the heart, and becomes ' the power of God unto 
" salvation.'" — Thus, in conversion, according to 
Mr Gurney himself, the Spirit is the agent, and 
the truth the means. Let the same principle be 
applied to the subsequent advancement of the re- 
newed soul in the divine life, — the process of pro- 
gressive sanctification ; — in this too let the Spirit be 
acknowledged the agent, and the truth the means ; — 
and Mr Gurney is in full agreement with the whole 
body of evangelical professors of the Christian faith. 
And that this is the true scriptural representation of 
the case, evidence might be accumulated from the 
sacred volume. Our Lord prays — John xvii. 17. 
;i Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is 
truth :'' — and Peter says respecting the Gentile be- 
lievers, — Acts xv. 8, 9. " And God, who knoweth 
the hearts, bare them record, giving them the Holy 
Ghost, even as he did unto us : and put no difference 
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." 
The truth or word of God, then, — received in faith, 
— is the instrumental means of sanctification ; and 
the Spirit of God, freely bestowed by Him, is the 
agent in giving efficiency to the means. — Such is the 
invariable statement of the Holy Scriptures. I have 
2h 



362 

already, in a former letter, cited passages in support 
of it. I may be allowed here a remark or two upon 
one more — 1 Cor. ii. 14. " But the natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for 
they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned." This 
is plain. We need not trouble ourselves with any 
critical strictures, to ascertain the meaning of the 
designation " the natural man :" — it is quite enough 
for us to be assured, as we are by the apostle in the 
preceding chapter, that it includes, not merely the 
sensualist, or the man who gives himself up to ani- 
mal gratifications and worldly pleasures, but also, 
and even especially, the philosophers, the men who 
" sought after wisdom," — to whom, more than to 
any other class whatever, " the things of the 
Spirit" appeared "foolishness." See 1 Cor. i. 18 — 
25. — By "the things of the Spirit" are undoubtedly 
to be understood the things which God had already 
revealed by his Spirit to his commissioned and ac- 
credited servants — Chap. ii. 10. and which they 
spoke to their fellow-men, as the same Spirit gave 
them utterance, verse 13. These " things of the 
Spirit" then, correspond with " the testimony of 
God" which they " declared," verse 1. — of which 
testimony the great and essential subject was " Jesus 
Christ — Christ crucified," verse 2. — Those who de- 
clared this testimony were the " ministers by whom 



363 

the Corinthians had believed" — that is, by whose 
ministry the testimony which was the object of their 
faith had been imparted to them — Chap. iii. 5. iv. 
15. and xv. 1, 2. The gospel was declared by the 
apostles ; through their ministry it had come to the 
Corinthians; and, while by multitudes it was esteemed 
" foolishness," those to whom the apostle now wrote 
had discerned its excellence, and received it as the 
truth of God. This discernment they owed to the 
influence of God's Spirit. It was by the Spirit's 
own illumination that the suitableness, consistency, 
and glory of "the things of the Spirit" — the discover- 
ies made in the gospel — were perceived. — Their " dis- 
cerning" and "knowing'' the things of the Spirit 
does not mean their receiving themselves any direct 
communication of truth to their minds, independent 
of apostolic testimony ; — but precisely that " enlight- 
ening influence of the Holy Ghost," which Mr Gur- 
ney affirms " absolutely indispensable to a saving 
apprehension of the truths contained in the Sacred 
Volume :" — for the truths now contained there are 
the very same with those which were of old deliver- 
ed to men by the living voice of God's inspired mes- 
sengers. — It must further be sufficiently manifest, 
that, when the apostle affirms the inability of the 
natural man to know the things of the Spirit, he in- 
tends, not a mere knowledge of their meaning, (for 
the knowledge of that is necessary to their being 
2h2 



364 

disbelieved and rejected, — necessary to their being 
accounted foolishness,) bat the knowledge of them 
in such a way as that they no longer appeared 
foolishness, as they had done before, but, what 
they really were, " the power of God and the 
wisdom of God ;" that is, the knowledge of them 
as divinely true and divinely excellent. This know- 
ledge is the result of spiritual discernment ; and 
this spiritual discernment, of the real but inexpli- 
cable operation of the Holy Spirit in the mind and 
heart. — There is thus a twofold work of the Spirit. 
There is his work in inspiration properly so called, — 
the infallible communication of divine truth to the 
minds of those "holy men of God" whose special 
commission it was to be, to make known that truth, 
with suitable attestation, to others : — and there is 
his work in ordinary spiritual illumination, or the 
removal from the mind and heart of those preposses- 
sions against the truth thus revealed and attested, 
by which the discernment of its divine excellence is 
prevented, and it continues to be rejected as false- 
hood, and scorned as foolishness. For this latter 
description of divine influence we " earnestly con- 
tend," as for a part of " the faith once delivered unto 
the saints." The results of the other we consider as 
having been completed in the Holy Scriptures, — the 
only writings which we acknowledge as " given by 
inspiration of God." — Mr Gurney " conceives, that 



365 

" every true Quaker is prepared cordially to acknow- 
" ledge that the Holy Scriptures, and they alone, 
" are a divinely authorized record of all the doctrines 
" which we are required to believe, and of all the 
" moral principles that are to regulate our actions — 
" not to mention the luminous declaration which they 
" contain of our relative and particular duties."* — 
This appears to reduce the difference between the 
Quakers and others, on this subject, to a very narrow 
point. It would be unseemly presumption in me to 
dispute the accuracy of Mr Gurney's statements re- 
specting the views entertained by his own Body : — but 
really it is impossible to read the writings of the older 
Quakers — the Fathers of the family — without being 
sensible, that there is a prodigious softening down, on 
the part of this writer, of their opinions and language. 
When he represents " every true Quaker" as ready to 
acknowledge the Scriptures, "a?id them alone" as "a 
divinely authorized record" of doctrine and duty, he 
says what, in a certain sense, is true. But we have 
formerly had sufficient evidence before us of the 
qualifying limitations with which the representation 
must be understood. It is truth ; but it can hardly 
be said to be the whole truth. Is it not equally true, 
that, while the Holy Scriptures, and they alone, are 
" a divinely authorized Record" of the mind and will 

* Strictures, &c. page 23. 

2h 3 



366 

of God, — yet u every true Quaker/' — every genuine 
follower of Fox, and Penn, and Barclay, — every con- 
sistent advocate of the ' ; inward light" and of the 
"primary and secondary rule," — holds also the divine 
authority of communications still made directly by 
the Spirit to the minds of God's servants and people? 
Supposing it granted, then, that the Holy Scriptures 
are the only divinely authorized Record of truth 
and duty, of how little avail is such an admission, if 
men are still to be taught that their first attention is 
due to the movements of the Spirit himself in 
their own minds ; — that it is in themselves, if they 
would but give this attention, that the Spirit " makes 
all things manifest ;" — that this is the guide whom, 
in the first instance, they are to follow, while the 
Scriptures, being something merely outward, are to 
be regarded as " not the chief rule,"* but subordinate 
to this primary and superior direction ? If the quo- 
tations formerly made, from Barclay and others, are 
not sufficient to bear me out in holding this to have 
been one of the elementary and essential principles 
of primitive Quakerism, I must own myself either 
mistaken or misled. My present conviction, how- 
ever, is, that in so far as Mr Gurney holds a senti- 
ment, and speaks a language, different from this, he 
must be considered as having, to that extent, aban- 

* Barcluy. 



367 

cloned Quakerism. And indeed, on this and on 
various other points, it cannot fail to strike the most 
superficial reader, what a perfect contrast there is 
between the writings of Mr Gurney and those of 
" the early Friends." I am very far from wishing 
Mr Gurney to take a single step out of Quakerism 
in points where Quakerism is truth. In other points, 
however, he has already taken several, — and these, 
too, even larger strides than any that now remain 
for him to take. May the Divine Spirit be gra- 
ciously pleased, by means of that complete revelation 
which He has given us, to lead, not him only, but 
you, my friends, and myself, and every fellow-chris- 
tian and fellow-man around us, — into all truth! 

When I spoke of offering a few observations on 
some of the practical bearings of the theory of im- 
mediate manifestation, or " perceptible guidance," I 
had in view the two great subjects of the ministry 
and the observance of external ordinances. You 
have various other peculiarities besides these and 
such as arise out of them ; — those especially which 
relate to war, to oaths, to plainness of speech, and 
to apparel. On these it was never my intention even 
to touch. My immediate object was to consider 
principles, — and such principles as were manifestly 
primary and fundamental. Even into the sub- 
jects of the ministry and of ritual observances I have 



368 

no intention of entering. They are subjects of high 
importance, and would require a more extended ar- 
gumentation than it is now in my power to under- 
take. All that I purpose at present is, to offer a few 
brief remarks on the degree of authority, in deter- 
mining such questions, ascribed by Mr Gurney, and 
by Quakers generally, to the Spirit's " perceptible 
guidance." 

It is before proceeding to show that " the distin- 
guishing views and practices of the Society of 
Friends are derived from the essential principles of 
the law of God" — "arising directly or indirectly 
out of these principles," — that Mr Gurney intro- 
duces, as preparatory to his argument, the chapter of 
his work on the "perceptible influence and guidance 
of the Spirit:" — and, in the conclusion of that chap- 
ter, the reason of this arrangement appears. He 
there expresses, with all possible clearness, the bear- 
ing of this doctrine on the adoption of those peculi- 
arities by which Quakers are distinguished. — " Now 
the first argument to be adduced," says he, " in sup- 
port of this position" — (the position that the pecu- 
liarities of Friends arise out of the principles of the 
divine law) — " is immediately connected with the 
" doctrine unfolded in the present chapter. If the 
" question be addressed to us, why do we consider it 
" to be our duty to adopt our several religious pecu- 
" liarities, we may answer, because we believe we have 



369 

" been led into them by the Spirit of truth.* The 
" casual observer may, indeed, attribute our mainte- 
" nance of them to the mere force of habit and edu- 
" cation ; and certainly, there is much reason to ap- 
" prehend, that, with too many amongst us, they rest 
" upon no better foundation. Nevertheless, you whom 
" I am now addressing can scarcely fail to be aware, 
" that, with real Friends, the adoption and punctual 
" observance of such a line of conduct are not only 
" matters of honest principle, but are truly the con- 
" sequence of obedience to their inward guide. It is 
" a fact which the world can scarcely be expected to 
" notice, but which is well known to every experi- 
" enced Quaker, and will not be denied by any per- 
" sons who possess an intimate knowledge of the So- 
" ciety, that the very same guiding and governing 
€i 'principle , which leads the sincere-hearted and seri- 
" ous among Friends into the practice of universally 
" acknowledged Christian virtues, leads them also into 
" these peculiarities, I am not asserting, that such 
" would necessarily be the experience of all persons 
" who endeavour to follow the guidance of the Spirit ; 
" nor would I, in any respect, venture to set limits 
" to the sovereignty, freedom, scope, and variety, of 
" divine operation. I assert only that this is our own 
" experience. Such, therefore, being our experience ? 

The Italics throughout the paragraph are Mr Gurney's. 



370 

" we cannot but derive from it a strong and satisfac- 
" tory conviction that our religious peculiarities ap- 
" pertain to the law of God ; for it is certain that the 
" Spirit of truth, by whose influence alone men are 
" made truly righteous, and brought into conformity 
" with the divine will, would never lead any of the 
" followers of Jesus into a course of conduct which 
" is not founded on the principles of that law. The 
" inward manifestations of the Spirit are, in them- 
" selves, the law of God written on the heart." * 

This is a paragraph which would have come better 
from the pen of George Fox or Robert Barclay, than 
it does from that of Joseph John Gurney. To dis- 
cuss its contents at large would necessarily lead me 
to much repetition. It suggests, however, a few 
reflections, which he must pardon me for frankly 
making : — 

1. It is perfectly true, — " certain," as Mr Gurney 
affirms it to be, — that " the Spirit of truth could never 
" lead any of God's children into a course of conduct 
" which is not founded on the principles of the di- 
" vine law :" — but has Mr Gurney forgotten the va- 
rious sources of illusion, by which, upon his own 
admission, the dictates of the human imagination are 
liable to be mistaken for the suggestions of the Spirit? 
The Spirit of God can never lead astray : — but a 

* Observations, &c. pages 97, 98. 



371 

man's fancy may lead him astray, — variously and 
wildly astray,— in regard to the fact of his having 
the Spirit, — and, consequently, in regard to whatever 
he may conceive to himself, or hold out to others, 
as a dictate of the Spirit. There can hardly be a 
principle more illusory, as a ground for the observ- 
ance or non-observance of particular institutions. 
We may imagine ourselves " led into them by the 
Spirit of truth," when we have been led only by the 
constitutional tendencies, or the educational, and 
even the capricious and unaccountable, predilections, 
of our own minds. 

2. Is it consistent with the principle, so distinctly 
admitted by Mr Gurney, of the Holy Scriptures 
being the authorized record of truth and duty, to 
have recourse to the suggestions of an inward guide, 
and to expose ourselves, consequently, to so many 
risks of delusion ? Why not at once " to the law 
and to the testimony ?" Is there any necessity for 
more than an authorized record of the divine will, 
and a disposition humbly and implicitly to follow it? 
If it be alleged, that the record furnishes us chiefly 
with principles, while we are left to the direction of 
the inward guide in their application ; I answer, first, 
that, even if this were true, there is a vast extent of 
room left for self-deception and extravagance in the 
application of principles ; as the history of rites and 
ceremonies in the Christian church too amply testi- 



372 

fies : — and, secondly, that it is not true ; there being 
actually contained in the record, in the form both of 
precept and example, such directions respecting ex- 
ternal observances in the churches of Christ, as have 
misled the whole Christian world except the Quakers, 
and have required all the learning and ingenuity of 
the most learned and ingenious members of that 
community, to frame even a plausible apology for 
their omission. I am satisfied that no better exem- 
plification could be produced of the danger of our 
being left to ourselves, — or left to the suggestions of 
any supposed " inward guide," in the application of 
principles, than the manner in which the Friends 
themselves have disposed of these observances. 

3. In examining the Scriptures to discover the 
will of God, there is nothing so important and neces- 
sary as freedom from all prepossession in behalf of 
any one principle or practice, more than another. 
Is it, then, a really favourable state of mind in 
which to come to the examination of the authorized 
Record, when there is a previous confidence in the 
intimations of another Guide, — a prepossession in 
favour of certain principles, and of certain applica- 
tions of those principles, into which the subject of 
this guidance persuades himself he has been divinely 
led? Will not such a bias unavoidably sway the 
mind in one direction, — as the bias of a bowl on the 
smooth sward inclines it toward the point it was de- 



373 

signed to reach? We are sure to find what we are pre- 
viously bent on finding. It will not do to say, that this 
bias is from the Spirit of God, — and that it cannot, 
therefore, sway the mind otherwise than in a right 
direction,— that is, towards the point of conformity 
with the mind of God in his word: — for this would 
be, most flagrantly, to beg the question, — to assume 
at once the divinity and the actual reality of the 
contested guidance. — Such a prepossession is far 
from being the less dangerous, that it is devout. 
Its having the sanction, in the mind, of a religious 
principle, only augments the hazard, by imparting 
to it a sacredness which the pious spirit fears to con- 
travene. The better course, surely, is to come di- 
rectly to the record, with a mind, through the sup- 
plicated influence of the Spirit of truth, humbly and 
steadfastly determined upon implicit submission, — 
seeking, with all "simplicity and godly sincerity," 
an answer to the one question, " Lord, what wouldst 
thou have me to do?" 

4. It seems very unaccountable, that, in such a 
connexion as this, Mr Gurney should introduce the 
sentiment, that " the inward manifestations of the 
" Spirit are, in themselves, the law of God written 
" on the hearth — Strange ! The subject on the dis- 
cussion of which Mr Gurney was about to enter, was 
the propriety or impropriety, the obligation or non- 
obligation, of certain " outward religious points" by 
2 i 



374 

which the Friends are distinguished from other 
Christian professors. In what way a question of 
such a nature could be determined by the " law 
written on the heart," it is not easy to see. That 
law is, essentially, the law of love, — being summed 
up, by the highest authority, in the two great pre- 
cepts of love to God and love to men. What con- 
nexion has this "law written on the heart" with the 
settlement of the controversy respecting the ob- 
servance of water-baptism and the Lord's Supper > 
Were I to try the obligation of these two ordinances 
by their influence, respectively, upon love, the set- 
tlement of the controversy should not hang one mo- 
ment in doubt; — their tendency, when rightly un- 
derstood and scripturally celebrated, being eminently 
to the promotion of that divine and divinely blessed 

principle — But the plain truth is, that the ■»«> 

>lr 
matters, which can be determined by nothir 

.) 
than the existence or non-existence of a divine enact- 
ment; and that this is what can be found nowhere 
but in the Book. The attempt to determine any 
such points by a reference to " manifestati ns of the 
Spirit,'' or to the " law written on the heart," 
is of all processes the most preposterous. Of 
all questions, those which relate to external ob- 
servances are the least susceptible of settlement on 
any other ground than that of divine prescription ; — 
and, if Friends profess to have been " led into their 



375 

peculiarities/' whether of observance or of non- 
observance, " by the Spirit of truth,'' it is an appeal 
to the New Testament alone that can determine, 
whether that Spirit, or their own imagination, has 
been their real guide. 

5. It is not denied, that spirituality is the distin- 
guishing characteristic of New Testament worship ; 
that " under the Christian dispensation, the worship 
" of God is not to be formal, ceremonial, or typical, 
" but simply spiritual."*' — As a general principle, we 
grant this ; we advocate it ; we are thankful for it ; 
we delight in it. But we deny that this character- 
istic spirituality lays us under any necessity to ex- 
clude all external observance whatever. A character- 
istic distinction may exist, and exist in a remarkable 
degree, without such absolute exclusiveness. I ap- 
peal *o Mr Gurney himself. He says — " The two 
ms of worship are described as completely 
?t : the one was about to die away, the other 
" to be established. The old worship consisted prin- 
" cipally in the performance of typical rites. The 
" new worship was of a precisely opposite charac- 
" ter."f I am not going to enter into any dispute 
with Mr Gurney respecting the amount of spiritual- 
ity required in the worship of the Old Economy. I 
only wish him, — and I wish you, my friends, — to 

Observations, &c. p. 100. f Ibid. p. 117. 

2 i2 



376 

observe the qualifying word which he uses respect- 
ing it : — it " consisted principally in the performance 
of typical rites." This, it seems, was sufficient td 
justify its designation as worldly and carnal. On 
what consistent ground, then, is absolute exclusive- 
ness, in regard to all outward ceremonies, insisted 
upon as necessary to entitle the New Economy to 
the designation of spiritual? Is it not here ad- 
mitted to be of a "precisely opposite character" to 
the old, if it consists principally of what is spiritual ? 
Surely, the existence of two rites — and these two of 
such singular simplicity — can never be enough to 
deprive it of its spiritual character. It is not fair to 
say, that these observances " plainly appertain to the 
principle of the Old Covenant;" for on such a ground, 
all spirituality whatever must be excluded from the 
worship of the Old Covenant, as " plainly appertain- 
ing to the principle of the New." — Farther: — Mr 
Gurney will not deny that, according to our mental 
constitution, inward affections are capable of being 
assisted, confirmed, and promoted, by means of ex- 
ercises and observances that are external. He will 
not be so uncandid as to question, what accords with 
universal experience, and with every theory of the 
human mind. He is very well aware, that the ex- 
ternality of the Holy Scriptures themselves, — their 
being something entirely outward, — a mere written, 
or, in more modern days, a mere printed book, — is 



377 

one of the very grounds on which, by his brethren 
of olden time, and by some not so far back, they 
have been held in subordination to what is inward, 
to what is spiritual; — that the spirituality of the 
New Covenant dispensation is the very principle on 
which these sacred writings have been under-rated, 
and have been spoken of and written of, many a time, 
in terms and in a spirit so unworthy, and so revolt- 
ing to every mind that feels their real preciousness, 
from the conviction of their exclusive authority.— 
The very reading of these Scriptures is an outward 
act; and an act that has been too frequently ne- 
glected, under pretext of dependence on more direct 
and spiritual guidance. Now, if the outward exer- 
cise of reading the Scriptures is necessary to the 
mind's receiving information of truth ; is it at all in- 
consistent with the spirituality of the New Dispen- 
sation that there should be other outward acts and 
exercises adapted for the impression of truth ? This 
is the real use of the few and simple rites of New- 
Testament celebration. They embody and they 
impress truth ; — and for their efficiency in answering 
their end, thousands and tens of thousands, of dead 
and living witnesses, might be summoned to testify. 
It has often struck my own mind, as one of the many 
evidences of divine wisdom in the constitution of the 
Gospel Economy, that while, by the abolition of the 
manifold typical rites of a burdensome ceremonial, 
2 i 3 



378 

its spirituality stands out in full contrast with the 
opposite character of the system which preceded it, 
— there has not been an entire cessation of all appeal 
to that law of our constitution, by which the out- 
ward senses are rendered effectually and happily sub- 
servient to mental and spiritual impression. There 
is just enough of external observance, appointed by 
Him who " knoweth what is in man," to answer suffi- 
ciently this end, without at all affecting the charac- 
teristic spirituality of the Dispensation. By setting 
aside even the little that the Head of the Church has 
sanctioned, Quakerism has marred instead of mend- 
ing ; as has invariably been the case with every 
attempt to improve upon divine counsels. " The 
foolishness of God is wiser than men." — That the 
principle in our mental constitution, of which I 
now speak, has, by some religionists, been pushed, 
in its application, to an unwarrantable extreme, I 
readily grant. It has introduced crucifixes, and 
images, and pictures, and gorgeous vestments, and 
altars, and masses, and all the multiform mum- 
mery of Romish superstition. But if the Romanists, 
and some others, have gone to one extreme, the 
Friends, I conceive, have gone to the other; — if the 
one have been wrong in multiplying, the other have 
been wrong in annihilating. Antinomianism has 
been called the ultraism of grace; Quakerism might, 



379 

not less appropriately, be denominated the ultraism 
of spirituality. The principle of the Quaker sys- 
tem is, indeed, decidedly more in harmony with the 
Spirit of the New Testament than that of popish 
will-worship. But still it is an extreme ; and both 
the one extreme and the other should teach us the 
all-important lesson — a lesson which can never be 
too strongly enforced, or too frequently reiterated 

Of TAKING THE WORD OF THE LORD AS OUR 

ONLY GUIDE. 

I must have done. The various questions on the sub- 
jects of the ministry, water-baptism, the Lord's Supper, 
oaths, war, dress, church-taxes, and other points of 
practical distinction between the Society of Friends 
and other religious bodies, I must leave untouched. 
Some of these, indeed, ought scarcely to be considered 
as distinctive. Nothing is, in strict propriety, entitled 
to the designation of a distinctive principle or a dis- 
tinctive practice, which might be held, or which 
might be done, by members of other denominations, 
without any relinquishment of the tenets or the ob- 
servances that constitute their own peculiarities.* 



* This might be exemplified in the case of oaths, and of war, 
and of taxes for the support of the endowed religion. Their 
principles on all these subjects have been held by Christians 
belonging to other denominations than the Friends; and in some 



380 

Bat the whole of them together involve topics of 
discussion, such as might furnish ample materials for 
another volume, as large as the one I am now draw- 
ing to a close. It is true, that the questions relative 
to the ministry, and to the two ordinances of bap- 
tism and the Lord's Supper, are questions which, to 
the satisfaction of my own mind, are capable of be- 
ing brought within very narrow compass. But thus 
briefly to dispose of them, I could not reasonably 
expect to be satisfactory to those whom I am ad- 
dressing; nor would it be consistent with the estima- 
tion in which I hold such a defender of your system 
as Joseph John Gurney ; — a writer, whose known 
character, associated with his scholarship, and taste, 
and eminent intellectual qualifications, repress effec- 
tually every sentiment of disrespect, — and whose 
gentlemanly and Christian spirit (I judge from his 
writings, not having the pleasure of personal ac- 
quaintance) preclude as effectually every emotion of 
irritability or bitterness. — I think it preferable, not 
to enter on these subjects at all ; but rather to leave 
it with yourselves to carry out, in their application to 
them, the principles which it has been my object, io 

instances, especially of late, the Quaker practice as well as the 
Quaker principle, has, in regard to the last of the three, been 
followed. They are, however, the only collective body by which 
these views are avowed, and by which the practice dictated by 
them is made a term of communion. 






381 

these letters, to establish. The points to which I have 
directed my assault have been those which I regarded 
as forming the very citadel of Quakerism. But my 
aim has been, — 1 say it in the full recollection that 
the eye of the Searcher of hearts is upon me, — not 
to overthrow Quakerism, but to overthrow error. 
If, in any one point, I have aimed a shaft at truth, 
mistaking it for error, may the mistake, unconsciously 
committed, be graciously forgiven ! — and if, in any 
one point, I have done injustice, either to your com- 
munity collectively, or to any individual who has 
been or is now a member of it, may the same for- 
giveness be extended to the unintentional wroog ! — 
forgiveness from you, and forgiveness from a higher 
Tribunal ! — I have desired, throughout, to retain 
upon my mind the remembrance that " the wrath 
of man worketh not the righteousness of God ;" and 
that to indulge such a spirit is at once to bring guilt 
upon ourselves, and, by rousing resentment and jea- 
lousy, to counterwork our own professed design. — If, 
in any instance, I have been led to express myself 
strongly, give me credit when I assure you, that it 
has been " more in sorrow than in anger," — in vehe- 
mence against what appeared to me perilous error, 
not against the persons by whom the error has been 
maintained. If, by the blessing of God, I shall have 
succeeded in displacing such error from any mind 



382 

in which it may heretofore have lodged, and intro- 
ducing, in its room, salutary truth, I shall not have 
written in vain. 

Once more, believe me, 

Yours respectfully, 

Ralph Wardlaw. 



THE END. 



GLASGOW: 
fULLARTON AND CO., PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD. 






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